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THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES

ANNE DILLON |
i GIFT OF
j

Mrs. Helen A. Dillon

Mirbeau. ‘This 1s wnat me suze

“He is a literary explorer. - - The rare
charm of tenderness is his. . - In his
novels we find strong, violent strokes, an
extreme irony; but his pages are filled with
an emotion which avows, as if regretfully,
the nobility and lofty desires” of a soul
imprisoned in the reserve of its youth.”

And another critic thus paints him:

“A masterly and vigorous writer, gifted
with an extraordinary power of expression,
an enthusiast, an unexampled evoker of
nature, stirred by the physical sensations
which human beings and inanimate things
give him, equally capable of lifting us to a
world of poetry Of of hurling us into abys-
mal depths; always 2 man of the first water,
battling against all the spectres of life; and.

me Set OES

exaggeration. In its remarkable pages, Octave

Mirbeau, who has been characterized as “the
Don Juan of the Ideal,” pours the tumultuous passion
of a Byronically sensitive soul. It is filled with pity,
it trembles with poetry and is extraordinary by reason
of its wave of sublime eloquence. Yet it is a simple
story, the story of a love for a wilful woman, but the
striking character which distinguishes it lies in the
clear, unmatched impressions of the love.

4 (oe can be called a masterpiece without

Jean Mintie, the hero, is an analyst of the soul
who cannot experience an action without dissecting it,
a man of feeling who recklessly surrenders himself to
his love, at once frenzied and intelligent; a man neither
foolish nor an imbecile, who yet permits himself to be
dragged to the depths of vice and crime for his sweet-
heart. The description of Mintie’s reaction to war is
masterly in its realism.

. The book has undeniable charm —a powerful,
sweeping narrative. It is the record of a man crucified
by his love.

CALVARY

Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2007 with funding from
Microsoft Corporation

http://www.archive.org/details/calvaryanovel0Omirbiala

CALVARY

(A Novel)

By Octave Mirbeau
Member of the Goncourt Academy

Translated by Louis Rich

New York
Lieber & Lewis

MCMXXII

CopyricHr, 1922,
By LIEBER & LEWIS

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Collere CALVARY

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CHAPTER I

- les-Hétres, a small town in the department of Orne,
and I was immediately christened by the name of
Jean-Frangois-Marie-Mintié. To celebrate in a fitting
manner my coming into this world, my godfather, who
was my uncle, distributed a lot of dainties, threw many
coppers and other small coins to a crowd of country
boys gathered on the church steps. One of them,
while struggling with his comrades, fell so awkwardly
on the sharp edge of a stone that he broke his neck
and died the following day. As for my uncle, when
he returned home he contracted typhoid fever and
passed away a few weeks later. My governess, old
Marie, often related these incidents to me with pride
and admiration.

Saint-Michel-les-Hétres is situated on the outskirts
of a great national forest, the Tourouvre forest. Al-
though it counts fifteen hundred inhabitants, it makes
no more noise than is made in the fields on a calm
day by the trees, the grass, the corn. A grove of giant
beech trees, which turn purple in autumn, shields it
from the northern winds, and the houses with pentile
roofs, descending the declivity of the hill, extend far
out until they meet the great valley, broad and always
green, where one can see straying herds of oxen. The
Huisne River, glittering under the sun, winds and
loses itself in the meadows which are separated by
rows of tall poplars. Dilapidated tanneries, small wind-
mills scale its course, clearly visible among clumps of
alders. On the other side of the valley are cultivated
fields with straight lines of fences and apple trees

| WAS born one evening in October at Saint-Michel-

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scattered here and there. The horizon is enlivened by
small pink farms, by hamlets one can see here and
there in the midst of the verdure which appears almost
black. Because of the proximity of the woods, the
sky is alive with crows and yellow-beaked jackdaws
coming and going at all seasons.

Our family lived on the outskirts of the town, op-
posite a church, very old and tottering, an ancient and
curious structure which was called the Priory —an
annex of an Abbey which was destroyed during the
Revolution and of which were left not more than two
or three faces of a crumbled wall covered with ivy. I
recall clearly but without tenderness the smallest de-
tails of the places where my childhood was spent. I
recall the iron gate in a neglected condition which
opened with a creaking sound into a large court
adorned by a scurfy grass plot, two shabby looking
sorbs visited by blackbirds, some chestnut trees, very
old and with such large trunks that the arms of four
men could not reach around them— my father used
to tell this with pride to every visitor. I recall the
house with its brick walls, grim and crusty; its semi-
circular steps beautified by geraniums; its irregular
windows which looked like holes; its roof, very steep,
ending in a weather-cock, which in a breeze made a
sound like an owl. Behind the house, I remember,
was a basin where muddy wake-robins were bathing
or small carps with white scales were playing. I recall
the sombre curtain of fir trees which hid the commons
from view, the back yard, the study which my father
built on the edge of the road skirting the property in
such a manner that the coming and going of clients
and clerks did not disturb the quiet of the household.
I recall the park, its enormous trees, strangely twisted,
eaten up by polypes and moss, joined together by
tangled lianas, and the alleys never raked, where worn-

CALVARY 7

out stone benches rose up here and there like ancient
tombs. And I also remember myself, a sickly child,
in a smock frock of lustring, running across this gloom
of forsaken things, lacerating myself in the blackberry
bush, torturing the animals in the backyard or for
entire days sitting in the kitchen and watching Felix
who served as our gardener, valet, and coachman.

Years and years have passed. Everything that I
loved is now dead. Everything that I knew has taken
on a new appearance. The church has been rebuilt.
It now has an embellished doorway, arched windows,
fancy gutter-spouts representing flaming mouths of
demons; its new brick belfry laughs gaily into the
blue; in place of the old house there now rises an
elaborate Swiss cottage built by the new proprietor
who, in the enclosure, has increased the number of
colored glass balls, small cascades and plaster statues
of Love, soiled by rain. But things and people are
engraved so profoundly upon my memory that time
could not apply a burnisher hard enough to erase them.

I want, from now on, to speak of my parents not as
I knew them when I was a child, but such as they
would appear to me now, completed by memory,
humanized, so to speak, by intimacy and revelation, in
all the crudity of life, in all the immediacy of impres-
sion which the inexorable experiences of life lend to
persons too unhesitatingly loved and too closely
known.

My father was a notary public. Since time imme-
morial it had been so with the Mintié family. It would
have appeared monstrous, almost revolutionary, if a
member of the Mintié family had dared to break this
family tradition and had renounced the scutcheons of
gilt wood which were transmitted religiously from
one generation to another like some title of nobility.
At Saint-Michel-les-Hétres and the surrounding coun-

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try, my father occupied a position which ancestral
pride, his dignified manners of a country gentleman,
and, above all, his income of twenty thousand francs
rendered very important, almost unshakeable. Mayor
of Saint-Michel, member of the general council, acting
justice of the peace, vice president of the agricultural
commission, member of numerous agronomic and for-
estry societies, he did not overlook any of the petty or
ambitious honors which carry with them a sort of
prestige and influence. He was an excellent man,
very honest and very gentle,—with a mania for kill-
ing. He could not see a bird, a cat, an insect — any-
thing at all that was alive — without being seized
with a strange desire to kill it. He waged a relentless
trapper’s war on blackbirds, goldfinches, chaffinches
and bullfinches. Felix was instructed to let my father
know as soon as a bird appeared in our garden, and
my father would leave everything — clients, business,
his meal —to kill the bird. He would often lie in
wait for hours, motionless, behind a tree on which the
gardener had pointed out a little blueheaded titmouse.
During his walks, every time he noticed a bird on a
branch and did not have his rifle with him, he would
throw his cane at it, never failing to say, “ Oh, hang
it! He was there this morning!” or “Hang it! I
must have missed him for sure, it’s too far.” These
were the only thoughts which birds ever inspired in
him.

-He was also greatly engrossed with cats. When-
ever he recognized the trail of a cat he could not rest
until he discovered and killed it. Sometimes on a
moonlight night he would get up, go out with his gun
and stay outside till dawn. You should have seen
him, musket on shoulder, holding by the tail the ca-
daver of a cat, bleeding and motionless! Never have
I. admired anything so heroic; and David on killing

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Goliath must have had no more intoxicated an air of
triumph! With a majestic gesture he threw the cat
at the feet. of the cook who said, “Oh! the nasty
beast!” and thereupon started to cut it up, saving the
meat for the beggars, leaving the skin to dry on the
end of a stick, later to be sold at Auvergnats. If I
dwell so much on details of a seemingly unimportant
character, it is because during all my life I was ob-
sessed with and haunted by these feline episodes of
my childhood. There is one among them which has
left such an impression on my spirit that to this very
day, in spite of all the years that have gone by and all
the sorrows that I have experienced, not a day passes
without my thinking of it sadly.

One afternoon father and I were walking in the
garden. My father carried a long stick ending in an
iron skewer, by means of which he unearthed snails

"and limaxes that were eating up the plants. Suddenly
on the edge of the basin we noticed a little kitten
drinking. We hid behind a thick shrub.

“ Child,” my father said in a low voice, “go quickly,
fetch my musket and come back. Be careful the cat
does not see you.”

And squatting down, he moved apart the twigs of
the shrub so that he might observe every movement
of the kitten which, resting on its forelegs, its neck
drawn out and wagging its tail, was lapping the water
in the basin and turning its head from time to time
to lick its mouth and scratch its neck.

“Come on,” repeated my father, “ be off!” I pitied
the little kitten. It was so pretty with its tawny fur
striped with silky black, its supple and graceful move-
ments and its tongue, like the petal of a rose, which
pumped water! I would have liked to disobey my
father, I even thought of making a noise, I wanted to
cough, to brush the twigs apart rudely in order to

£

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warn the poor animal of the danger ahead. But my
father looked at me with eyes so severe that I walked
away in the direction of the house. Pretty soon I
came back with the musket. The kitten was still
there, confident and gay. It had finished drinking.
Sitting on its back, its ears pricked up and eyes shin-
ing, it was following the flight of a butterfly in the
air. Oh, what a moment of unspeakable anguish that
was for me! My heart was beating so powerfully
that I feared I was going to faint.

“Papa! Papa!” I shouted. At the same time a
sharp report was heard, which sounded like the crack
of a whip.

“ Damned rascal!” my father swore.

He aimed again. I saw his finger pull the trigger;
quickly I shut my eyes and stopped my ears. Bang!!
....and I heard a mewing, at first plaintive and then
sorrowful, oh, so sorrowful that one might have said
it was the cry of a child. And the little kitten jumped,
writhed, pawed the grass and did not stir any more.

Of an absolutely mediocre mind, tender hearted,
though he seemed indifferent to everything which did
not appeal to his vanity or did not affect his profes-
sional interests, lavish of counsel, ready to render aid,
conservative, of graceful carriage and gay, my father
justly enjoyed the respect of everybody. My mother,
a young woman of the nobility, had brought no for-
tune with her as a dowry; instead, she had brought
with her powerful connections, a closer alliance with
the petty aristocracy of the country, which was con-
sidered just as useful as an increment in cash or an
acquisition of land. Although his powers of observa-
tion were very limited and he did not boast of any
ability to read souls as well as he could read a marriage
contract or explain the legal points of a testament, my
father very soon realized the difference of birth, edu-

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cation and temperament which separated him from his
wife.

Whether or not in the beginning he felt hurt on
that score, I do not know; at any rate he never
showed it. He resigned himself to it. Between him,
who was rather awkward, ignorant and indifferent,—
and her, who was educated, refined and emotional,
there was a chasm which he never for a moment tried
to bridge, having neither the desire nor the ability to do
so. This moral situation of two beings united for all
time, whom no community of thought and aspiration
ever brought in close contact with each other, did not
in the least trouble my father who considered himself
satisfied if he found the house well managed, the meals
well regulated, his habits and idiosyncrasies well re-
spected. To my mother, on the other hand, this con-
dition was very painful and made her heart heavy.

My mother was not beautiful, not even good looking,
but there was so much simple dignity in her carriage,
so much natural gracefulness in her movements, an
expression of such broad kindness on her lips, some-
what pale, and in her eyes which by turns changed
their color like the skies in April and shone like a
sapphire, a smile so caressing, so sad, so humble, that
one overlooked her forehead which was a little too
high, swelling out under spots of hair irregularly
planted, her nose all too large and her skin which was
ash-colored and metal-like in appearance and which
at times had an eruption of pimples on it. In her
presence, as one of her old friends often told me, and
as since then I sorrowfully realized myself, one felt
at first slightly affected, then gradually carried away
and finally violently possessed by a strange feeling of
sympathy in which there was mingled a sort of affec-
tionate respect, a vague desire, pity, and a longing to
offer oneself as a sacrifice for her. Despite her physical

12 CALVARY

imperfections or rather because of these very imper-
fections, she possessed the sad and irresistible charm
which is given to certain creatures privileged by mis-
fortune, and around whom there floats an atmosphere
of something irreparable. Her childhood and her early
youth were periods of illness and were marked by
some disquieting nervous fits. But it was hoped that
marriage, in modifying the conditions of her existence,
would restore her health which the physicians believed
was suffering only from an excessive sensitiveness. It
was not so at all. Marriage, on the contrary, only
developed the morbid tendencies that were in her,
and her sensitiveness was heightened to such a degree
that, among other alarming symptoms, my poor
mother could not stand the slightest odor, without
being thrown into a fit, which always ended in a
swoon. Of what did she suffer? Why these melan-
cholic fits, these prostrations, which left her huddled
up on the lounge for entire days, motionless and sullen
like an old paralytic? Why these tears which would
suddenly choke her throat to suffocation and for hours
roll from her eyes in burning streams? Why this dis-
gust with everything, which nothing could overcome:
neither distractions nor prayers? She could not tell, for
she herself did not know. . . Of the causes of her phy-
sical ailments, her mental tortures, her hallucinations
which filled her heart and brains with a passionate de-
sire to die, she knew nothing. She knew not why one
evening as she sat in front of the glowing fireplace,
she was suddenly seized with a horrible temptation
to roll on the fire grate, to deliver her body over to the
kisses of the flame which called her, fascinated her,
sang to her hymns of unknown love. Nor did she
know why on another day, while taking a stroll in the
country and noticing a man walking in a half-mowed
meadow with his scythe on the shoulder, she ran to-

CALVARY 13

wards him with outstretched arms, shouting “ Death,
O blessed death, take me, carry me away!” No, she
knew not the cause or reason for all that. What she
did know was that at such moments the image of her
mother, her dead mother, was always before her, the
image of her mother whom she herself, one Sunday
morning, had found hanging from the chandelier in
the parlor. And she again beheld the dead body which
oscillated slowly in the air, she saw the face all black,
the eyes all white and without pupils, she saw every-
thing up to the sunbeam which, penetrating through
the closed shutters, illuminated with a tragic light the
tongue, stuck out, and the swollen lips. This anguish,
these frenzies, this yearning for death, her mother had
no doubt transmitted to her when she gave life to her;
it is from her mother’s side that she drew, it is from
her mother’s breast that she drank the poison, this
poison which now filled her veins, with which her
flesh was permeated, which fuddled her brain, which
gnawed at her soul. During the intervals of calm
which grew less frequent as the days, months and
years passed by, she often thought of these things;
and brooding over her life, recalling its remotest inci-
dents and comparing the physical resemblances be-
tween the mother who died voluntarily and the daugh-
ter who wished to die, she felt more and more upon
her the crushing weight of this lugubrious inheritance.
She exalted in and completely abandoned herself to
the idea that it was impossible for her to resist the
fate of her ancestors who appeared to her as a long
chain of suicides emerging from the depth of night,
far in the past, and extending over ages to terminate
... Where? At this question her eyes became troubled,
her temples grew moist with a cold sweat and her
hands gripped her throat as if striving to grasp the
imaginary cord, the loop of which she felt was bruis-

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ing her neck and choking her. Every object seemed
to her an instrument of fatal death; everything re-
minded her of the image of death, decomposed and
bleeding ; the branches of the trees appeared to her as
so many sinister gibbets, and in the green water of the
fish pond, among the reeds and water lilies, in the
river shaded by tall herbage, she distinguished the
floating form covered with slime.

In the meantime my father, squatted behind some
thick shrub, musket in hand, was watching a cat or
bombarding some vocalizing warbler hidden in the
branches. In the evening, by way of consolation he
would gently say to mother, “ Well, dearie, your health
is not always good. You see, what you need is some
bitters, take some bitters. A glass in the morning, a
glass in the evening.... That’s all that’s needed.” He
did not complain of anything, he never got excited
over anything. Seating himself at his desk, he would
go over the papers which were brought to him by the
city clerk during the day and sign them rapidly with
an air of disdain. “ Here!” he would exclaim, “ it is
just like this corrupt administration; it would do a
whole lot better if it occupied itself with the farmer
instead of pestering us with these small matters. . . .
Here is some more silly stuff!” ... Then he would go
to bed, repeating in a calm voice: “ Bitters, take some
bitters.”

This resignation hurt my mother like a reproach.
Although my father’s education was rather limited
and though she did not find in him any trace of that
masculine tenderness or fanciful romanticism of which
she had dreamed, she nevertheless could not deny his
physical energy and a sort of moral vigor which she
envied in him, despising as she did its application to
things which she considered petty and sordid. She
felt guilty toward herself, guilty toward life so use-

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lessly wasted in tears. Not only did she not meddle
in the affairs of her husband, but little by little she
lost her interest even in household duties, leaving them
to the whims of the servants. She took so little care
of herself that her chambermaid, good old Marie, who
was present at her birth, often had to nurse and feed
her, while scolding her affectionately, as one does
a little infant in the cradle. In her desire for isolation
she came to a point where she could no longer stand
the presence of her parents, of her friends who, dis-
comfited and repelled by her countenance more and
more morose, by this mouth whence no word ever
came, by this forced smile which was immediately
shrivelled by an involuntary trembling of her lips,—
called less and less frequently and ended by forgetting
altogether the path leading to the Priory. Religion,
like everything else, became a burden to her. She no
longer put in an appearance in the church, did not
pray any more, and two Easters passed without any-
one seeing her approach the holy table.

Then my mother began to lock herself up in her
room, the shutters of which she closed, and drew the
curtains together, deepening the darkness about her.
She used to spend entire days there, sometimes
stretched out on a lounge, sometimes kneeling in a
corner, her head touching the wall. And she was an-
noyed by the least noise from outside; the slamming
of the door, the creaking of old shoes along the cor-
ridor, the neighing of a horse in the court came to
disturb her novitiate of non-existence. Alas! What
could be done about it! For a long time she had
struggled against an unknown disease, and the dis-
ease, stronger than she was, had felled her to the
ground. Now her will-power was paralyzed. She
was no longer free to rise or act. Some mysterious
force held her in chains, rendering her arms inert, her

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brain muddled, her heart vacillating like a little smoky
flame beaten by the wind; and far from resisting, she
looked for added opportunities to plunge deeper into
suffering, relishing with a sort of perverted exultation
the frightful delights of her self-annihilation.

Dissatisfied with the management of his domestic
affairs, my father at length decided to take an interest
in the progress of my mother’s illness, which passed
his understanding. He had the hardest time in the
world to make mother accept the idea of going to
Paris to consult the “ princes of science” as he put it.
It was a sorry trip. Of the three celebrated physicians
to whom he took her, the first declared that my mother
was anemic and prescribed a strengthening diet; the
second diagnosed that she was affected with nervous
rheumatism and prescribed a debilitating regimen; the
third one found that “it was nothing” and recom-
mended mental tranquility.

No one saw clearly into her soul. She herself did
not know it. Obsessed with the cruel memory to
which she attributed all her misfortunes, she could
not unravel with clearness all that stirred obscurely
in the innermost depths of her being, nor understand
the vague passions, the imprisoned aspirations, the
captive dreams which had accumulated in her since
childhood. She was like a nestling bird that, without
realizing the obscure and nostalgic forces which drew
it toward heaven of which it has no knowledge,
crushes its head and maims its wings against the cage
bars. Instead of craving death as she thought she
was, her soul within her, just like that bird that hun-
gered for the unknown skies, hungered for life radiant
with tenderness, filled with love; and just like that
bird, was dying from this unassuaged hunger. As a
child, she gave herself entirely, with all the exaggera-
tions of her fervid nature, to the love for material

.

|

CALVARY 17

things and animals; as a young girl she was given to
love of dreams of the impossible, but material objects
never brought her peace, nor did her dreams assume a
precise and soothing form. She had no one to guide
her, no one to set right this youthful mind already
shaken by internal shocks, no one to open the door
of this heart to wholesome reality, a door already
guarded by chimeric shadows in her vacant state; no
one to whom she could pour out the exuberance of
her thoughts, her tenderness, her desires, which find-
ing no outlet for expansion, accumulated, boiled with-
in her, ready to burst the fragile mould poorly pro-
tected by nerves too jaded.

Her mother, always ill, singularly absorbed in that
hypochondria which was soon to kill her, was inca-
pable of intelligent and firm direction in the matter of
her daughter’s education. Her father, all but ruined,
put to his last shift, struggled hard to save for his
family its ancestral home which was threatened; and
among the young people about her — shiftless noble-
men, vainglorious burghers, greedy peasants, none
bore upon his brow the magic star which could lead
her to her God. Everything she heard, everything
she saw seemed to be in disagreement with her own
manner of understanding and feeling. To her, the sun
did not appear red enough, the nights pale enough,
the skies deep enough. Her fleeting conception of
things and beings condemned her fatally to a perversion
of her senses, to vagaries of the spirit and left her
nothing but the torment of an unachieved longing, the
torture of unfulfilled desires. And later her marriage
which had been more than a sacrifice—a business
transaction, a compromise to improve the straitened
circumstances of her father! . .. And her disgust, her
revolt at feeling herself a piece of dishonored flesh,
a prey, an instrument of man’s pleasure! To have

18 CALVARY

soared so high and to fall so low! To have dreamed
of celestial kisses, of mystic caresses and divine pos-
sessions and then... the end of it!... Instead of wide
expanses, ablaze with light, where her imagination
felt at home among the soaring flights of angels in a
trance of joy and affrighted doves — there came night,
thick, sinister and haunted by the spectre of her
mother, stumbling over tombs and crosses with a
piece of cord on her neck.

The Priory soon grew silent. On the gravel of its
alleys one no longer heard the trundle of carts and
carriages bringing friends of the neighborhood to the
front entrance decorated with geraniums. The front
gate was bolted in order to make the carriages go
through the back yard. In the kitchen the servants
talked among themselves in low voices, moving about
on tiptoe as is done in a house where some one has
died. The gardener, by order of my mother who could
not stand the noise of wheelbarrows and the scraping
of rakes on the ground, allowed the wild stock to suck
up the sap of the rose bushes turned yellow, allowed
the weeds to choke the flowers in the baskets and to
cover up the walks. And the house with its dark
curtain of fir trees resembling a funeral canopy which
sheltered it from the west, with its windows always
closed, with its living corpse which it guarded buried
behind its square walls of old brick looked like a burial
vault. The country folk who on Sunday used to take
a stroll-in the woods, no longer passed by the Priory
without some sort of superstitious terror, as if that
dwelling were an evil place haunted by ghosts. Pretty
soon a legend grew about the place: a wood cutter
told how one night, going back from work, he saw
Madame Mintié all in white, her hair disheveled, cross-
ing the sky high above and beating her chest with the
crucifix.

CALVARY 19

My father locked himself up in his study more than
ever, avoiding as much as possible staying in the house
where he was hardly seen at times other than meal
hours. He also took to making distant trips, increased
the number of committees and societies over which he
presided, found means to create for himself new dis-
tractions and business affairs far away from home.
The Council General, the Agricultural Commission,
the jury of the Court of Assizes were of great help
to him for that purpose. When some one spoke to
him of his wife he answered, shaking his head:

“ Ah, lam very uneasy, very much wrought up over
it. How will it end? I must confess I fear she may
become insane.....

And when some one expressed his unbelief:

“ No, no, I am not joking. ... You know well that it
runs in her family, their heads don’t seem to be very
strong!”

Nevertheless reproach never came from his lips,
although he realized the embarrassing condition in
which this situation placed his business affairs and
which he ascribed to nothing but the irritating ob-
duracy of my mother in not wanting to try anything »
that might cure her.

It was in these sad surroundings that I grew up.
I came to this world a tiny, sickly child. What cares,
what fierce tenderness, what deadly anguishes I
brought with me! In the presence of the puny crea-
ture that I was, sustained by a breath of life so feeble
that it could be guessed at only by*a rattling sound
in my throat, my mother forgot her own sorrows.
Maternity revived her worn-out energy, awakened her
conscience to new duties, to new sacred responsibili-
ties which now devolved upon her. What ardent
nights, what feverish days she spent bent over the
cradle where lay something born of her own flesh and

20 CALVARY

soul, and palpitating!... Ah! yes! ... I belonged to
her, to her only; it was not at all of this conjugal sub-
mission that I was born; I was not the fatal conse-
quence of the original sin as other children of men are;
no! she had always carried me in her womb, and like
Christ I was conceived in a long cry for love. All her
troubles, her terrors, her past sufferings she under-
stood now; it was because a great mystery of creation
was being enacted in her being.

She had great difficulty in bringing me up, and if I
outlived all that had threatened me one might say it
was accomplished by a miracle of love. More than
twenty times my mother snatched me from the
clutches of death. ... And then what a joy and what
a recompense it was to her to see the little wrinkled
body fill itself with the sap of health, the rumpled face
take on the color of shiny pink, the little eyes open
gaily into a smile, the lips, greedy and searching,
move and gluttonously pump the life-giving liquid
from her nourishing breast! My mother now tasted
a few moments of complete and wholesome happiness.
A desire to act, to be good and useful, to occupy her
hands, heart and spirit, to live at last took hold of
her, and even in the most commonplace duties of her
household she found a new, a passionate interest which
was doubled by a feeling of profound peace. Her
gayety came back to her, a natural and gentle gayety
without violent outbursts. She made plans, pictured
the future to herself with confidence, and many a time
she was astonished to discover that she no longer
thought of her past — that evil dream which vanished.

I grew. “One can see him getting bigger every day,”
the nurse used to say. And with rapturous emotions
my mother watched the hidden labor of nature which
polished the rough places of flesh, giving it more pliant
form, more definite features, better regulated move-

CALVARY 21

ments and poured into the dimness of the brain just
emerged from nothingness the primitive glimmer of
instinct. Oh, how everything seemed to her now
clothed in bright and entrancing colors! It was music
of welcome itself, the benediction of love, and even the
trees, formerly so full of dread and menace, were
stretching out their branches above like so many pro-
tecting arms. One was led to hope that the mother
had saved the woman. Alas! That hope was of short
duration.

One day she noticed in me a certain predisposition
to nervous fits, to a diseased contraction of muscles,
and she became alarmed. When I was about one year
old I had convulsions which came short of finishing
me. The fits were so violent that my mouth, even
long after the attack was over, remained twisted into
an ugly grimace as if paralyzed. My mother would
not admit that at periods of rapid growth the majority
of children were subject to-such fits. She saw in that
something which she thought was characteristic of her
and her ancestors, she saw in that the first symptoms
of a hereditary illness, of a terrible disease which she
thought was going to continue in her son. She battled
hard, however, against these thoughts which came in
hives ; she used every bit of energy and vigor she could
command to dissipate them, taking refuge in me as if
in an inviolable asylum for protection against phan-
toms and evil spirits. She held me pressed against
her bosom, covering me with kisses and saying:

“ My little Jean, it is not true, is it? You will live

and be happy, won’t you?... Answer me!... Alas!
You can’t talk, my poor little angel... . Oh, don’t cry,
never cry, Jean, my Jean, my dear little Jean! ...”

But question as she might, feel as she might my
heart beating against her own, my awkward hands
gripping her breasts, my legs dangling from under

22 CALVARY

the loosed swaddling cloth — her confidence was gone,
doubts gained the upper hand. An incident which was
related to me time and again with a sort of religious ter-
ror served to bring consternation into my mother’s soul.

One day she was taking a bath. In the hall of the
bath room laid out with black and white square slabs,
Marie, bent over me, was watching my first uncertain
steps. Suddenly, fixing my gaze on a black square, I
appeared to be very much frightened. I uttered a cry
and, trembling all over as if I had seen something ter-
rible, I hid my head in my nurse’s apron.

“ What’s the matter?” my mother anxiously asked.

“JT don’t know,” answered old Marie. It seemed
as though Master Jean had been frightened by a pav-
ing block.

She brought me to the spot where my countenance
so suddenly changed its expression. But at the sight
of the paving slab, I cried out again. My whole body
shuddered.

“There must be something!” cried my mother.
“Marie, quick, quick, my underwear! ... My God! —
What did he see?”

Having come out of the bath room, she did not want
to wait to be wiped, and scarcely covered by her peig-
noir she stooped over the stone and examined it.

“ That’s strange,” she murmured. “ And yet he saw
something. ... but what?... There isn’t anything....”

She took me in her arms, swayed me. I smiled now,
uttering inarticulate sounds and playing with the rib-
bons of her peignoir. She put me down on the floor.
Moving with short, unsteady steps, both arms out-
stretched, I purred like a kitten. None of the
blocks before which I stopped frightened me in the
least. Arrived at the fatal block, my face again as-
sumed the expression of horror, and frightened and
crying I returned quickly to my mother.

CALVARY 23

“T tell you there must be something!” she cried.
“Call Felix. Let him come with tools ...a hammer,
quick, quick! Tell Monsieur also!”

“It seems strange all the same,” assented Marie
who, with gaping mouth and eyes wide open, was look-
ing at the mysterious slab. “ He must be a sorcerer
then!”

Felix lifted one stone, examined it carefully, dug
into the mortar below.

“Dig up another one!” my mother commanded.
“ And that one also... another one...all of them...
dig them all up! I want to find out. ... And Monsieur
is not coming!”

In the excitement of her gestures, forgetting that
there was a man around, she uncovered herself and
revealed her nude body. Kneeling on the blocks, Felix
continued digging them up. He took each one out
with his brawny hands and shook his head.

“If Madame wants me to tell her. . . . For the rest,
Monsieur is way out in the park, busy sharpening the
pick-axe. ... And besides, there is nothing to it .. . the
stone blocks are like stone blocks, seemingly of the
pavement. That’s all! ... Madame may be sure....
Only it might be that that was only in Master Jean’s
imagination. ... Madame knows that children are like
grown-up folks and that they see things! But as to
these slabs, they are just slabs, neither more nor less.”

My mother became pale, haggard.

“Shut up!” she ordered, “and get out of here, all
of you!”

And without waiting for the execution of her order
she carried me out of the room. Her cries, interrupted
by the slamming of the door, resounded on the stair-
way and in the hall.

She never thought, however, poor dear creature that
she was, of giving to the bathroom incident a natural

: 24 CALVARY

explanation. One could have demonstrated to her
that what had frightened me so badly might have been
a moving reflection of a towel upon the humid surface
of the floor, or perhaps the shadow. of a leaf projected
from outside across the window, which of course she
would not have admitted as likely to have taken place.
Her spirit, fed on dreams, tormented by lurid exag-
gerations and instinctively drawn to the mysterious
and the fantastic, accepted with dangerous credulity
the vaguest explanation and yielded to the most
troubling suggestions. She imagined that her ca-
resses, her kisses, her lulling me to sleep communi-
cated to me the germs of her disease, that the nervous
fits which almost caused my death, the hallucinations
which shone in my eyes with the sombre radiance of
madness, were to her a divine warning, and as soon
as she conceived that, the last hope died in her heart.

Marie found her mistress half naked, stretched out
on the bed. .

“My God! My God!” she moaned, “ that’s the end
of it... .. My poor little Jean! . . . You, too, they will
take away from me!... Oh, God, have pity on him!...
Could that be possible! ... So little, so weak! ...”

And while Marie was putting back her clothes which
slipped to the ground, trying to quiet her:

“My good Marie,” she stammered, “listen to me.
Promise me, yes promise me to do as I tell you....
You have seen it just now, you have seen it, haven’t
you?... Well, take Jean, and bring him, up because I
— you see... he must not.... I'll kill him. .. . Here,
you'll stay in this room with him, right near me... .
You shall take good care of him and tell me all about
him. ... ll feel his presence there, I’ll hear him. ...
But you understand, he must not see me... . It is I
who make him that way! .. .”

Marie held me in her arms.

CALVARY 25

“ Madame, there is no sense in that at all,” she said,
“and you really deserve a good scolding as a lesson.
... Why just look at your little Jean! ... He is just
like a little quail. Now tell her, tell her, my little
Jean, that you are well and brave! . . . Look, look at
him laughing, the little creature. . . . Put your arms
around him, Madame.”

“No, no!” my mother cried out wildly. “I must
not.... Later.... Take him away!...”

It was impossible to make her abandon this idea.
Marie well understood that if her mistress had any
chance at all to come back to normal life, to cure her-
self of her “ black moods,” it was not in being sepa-
rated from her child. In the sad state in which my
mother found herself, she had but one means of recov-
ery and now she rejected it, impelled to do so by some
new and unknown fit of madness. All that a little
baby brings of joy, uneasiness, activity, anxiety, for-
getfulness of self to the heart of a mother was exactly
what she needed and yet she said: ;

“No, no....I1 must not.... Later.... Take him
away!...”

In her own language, familiar and rude, to which
her long devotions entitled her, the old servant maid
brought forward all the reasoning and arguments dic-
tated by her common sense and by her simple peasant
heart. She even reproached my mother for neglecting
her duties, she spoke of her selfishness and declared
that a good mother who had any religion at all or even
a savage beast wouldn’t act as she did.

“Yes,” she ended, “that is bad! ... you have al-
ready been so unkind to your husband, poor fellow.
Must you now make your child unhappy?”

But mother, always sobbing, could but repeat:

“No, no....I1 must not. ... Later.... Take him
away!...”

26 CALVARY

What was my childhood? A long torpor. Sepa-
rated from my mother whom I saw but rarely, avoid-
ing my father whom I did not love at all, living almost
in seclusion, a miserable orphan between old Marie
and Felix in this grand lugubrious house, the silence
and neglect of which weighed down upon me like a
night of death—I was bored. Yes, I was that rare
and wretched specimen of a child who is bored. Al-
ways sad and grave, hardly speaking at all, I had none
of the inquisitiveness and mischievousness of my age,
one might have said that my intellect had been slum-
bering forever in the numbness of maternal gestation.
I am trying to recall, I am trying to bring to life again
my feelings of childhood; verily I believe I had none.
I was dragging on, all wasted and stultified, without
knowing what to do with my legs, my arms, my eyes,
my poor little body which annoyed me like a tiresome
companion whom one wishes to get rid of. There is
not one recollection, not one single impression that has
been retained by me even in part. I always wished to
be where I was not, and the toys exhaling the whole-
some odor of fir trees were lying in heaps around me,
without inducing me even to think of touching them.
Never did I dream about a knife or wooden horse or
picture book. Today, when I see little children run-
ning, jumping, chasing one another on the garden
lawns, the sandy beaches, I recall with sadness the
first mournful years of my life, and while listening to
the clear laughter which sounds like the ringing of the
angelus of human dawn, I say to myself that all my
misfortunes have come from this childhood, lonely
and lifeless, unbroken by a single bright event.

I was not quite twelve years old when my mother
died. The day on which this misfortune happened the
good curé Blanchetiére, who liked us very much,
pressed me to his breast, then he looked at me for

CALVARY 27

some time and with eyes full of tears murmured sev-
eral times: “ Poor little devil!” I burst into uncon-
trollable tears when I saw the good curé cry, for I
did not want to reconcile myself to the thought that
my mother was dead and never again would come
back. During her illness I was forbidden to go into
her room, and now she was gone without having let
me embrace her! . .. Could she have really deserted
me that way?... When I was about seven years old
and was well she had agreed to re-admit me into her
life. It was from this time on that I understood that
I had a mother and that I adored her. My sorrowing
mother was represented to me by her two eyes, her
two large round eyes, fixed, with rings of red around
them, which always shed tears without moving the eye-
lids, which shed tears as does a rain cloud or a foun-
tain. All at once I felt a keen sorrow at the grief of
my mother, and it is through this grief that I awoke
to life. I did not know what she suffered from, but I
knew that her malady must have been horrible; I knew
that from the way she used to embrace me. She had
fits of tenderness which used to frighten me and which
inspire me with fear even now. As she clasped my
head, squeezed my neck and moved her lips over my
forehead, my cheeks, my mouth, her frenzied kisses
often passed into bites, similar to the caresses of a
beast; into her embraces she put all the true passion
of a lover, as if I had been the adored chimerical being
of her dreams, the being that never came, the being
whom her soul and her body so ardently desired. Was
it possible then that she was dead?

Every evening, before going to bed, I fervently
entreated the beautiful image of the Virgin to whom
I addressed my prayers: “ Holy Virgin, please grant
my dear mother good health and a long life.” But one
morning my father, silent and pale, accompanied the

28 CALVARY

physician to the gate, and the countenances of both
were so grave that it was easy to surmise that some-
thing irreparable had happened. Then the servants
were crying. What else could they have cried about,
if not the loss of their mistress? ... And then did not
the curé come up to me and say “ poor little devil!”
in a tone of irremediable pity? I remember the small-
est details of that frightful day as if it were yesterday.
From the room where I was shut in with old Marie I
could hear the coming and going of people and other
strange noises, and with my forehead pressed against
the window pane, I could see through the window
blinds women beggars squatted on the lawn, wax-
paper in hand, muttering prayers. I saw people enter
the courtyard, the men in black, the women with long
black veils. “Ah! here is Monsieur Bacoup!... ”
“Why, that’s Madame Provost!” I noticed that all
of them looked sad, while at the gate which was wide
open the children of the choir, the choristers uncom-
fortable in their black vestments, the Brothers of
Charity with their red tunics, one of whom carried a
banner and another a heavy silver cross, were laughing
aloud and amusing themselves by pushing and jostling
one another. The beadle, tinkling his bell, was driv-
ing back inquisitive mendicants, and a wagon loaded
with hay which had come up on the road was com-
pelled to stop and wait. In vain did I look for the
eyes of little Sorieul, a crippled child of my age whom
I used to given a small loaf of bread every Saturday;
I could not find him anywhere, and that made me feel
uneasy. Then suddenly the bells on the church belfry
began to toll. Ding! Ding! Dong! The sky was of
deep blue, the sun was ablaze. Slowly the funeral pro-
cession started out, first the Brothers of Charity and
the choristers, the cross which glittered, the banner
which fluttered in the air, the curé in a white surplice,

CALVARY 29

shielding his head with the psalm-book, then some-
thing heavy and long covered with flowers and wreaths
which some men carried shaking at their knees, then
the crowd, a crawling crowd which filled the court-
yard, wound itself out on the road, a crowd in which
I could distinguish no one except my cousin Merel
who was mopping his head with a checkered handker-
chief. Ding! Dong! Dong! The church bell tolled
for a long, long time; ah! the sad knell! Ding! Dong!
Dong! And while the bells were tolling, tolling, three
white pigeons continuously fluttered about, pursuing
one another around the church right opposite me which
projected its warped roof and its slate steeple out
of plumb above a clump of acacia and chestnut
trees.

The ceremony ended, my father entered my room.
He walked back and forth for some time without
speaking, his arms crossed on his back.

“Ah! my poor Monsieur,” lamented old Marie,
“what a terrible misfortune! ”

“Yes, yes,” replied my father, “it is a great, a ter-
rible misfortune! ”

He sank into an armchair, heaving a sigh. I can see
him right now with his swollen eyelids, his dejected
look, his hanging arms. He had a handkerchief in his
hand, and from time to time brought it to his eyes,
red from tears.

“ Perhaps I did not take good care of her, Marie....
She did not like to have me around. ... Yet I did what
I could, everything I could. . . . How frightful she
looked, all rigid on the bed! . . . Ah, God! I shall al-
ways see her that way. The day after tomorrow she
would be thirty-one, would she not?”

My father drew me toward him and seated me on
his knees.

“You love me all the same, don’t you, my little

30 CALVARY

Jean?” he asked, rocking me. “Tell me, do you love
me? I have no one but you!...”

Speaking to himself he said:

“ Perhaps it is better that it is so. Who knows what

the outcome would be later on! ... Yes, perhaps it is
better this way... . Ah! poor little one, look at me
straight! .

And as if at that very moment he had divined in my
eyes which resembled the eyes of my mother a whole
destiny of suffering, he pressed me close to his breast
and burst into tears.

“ My little Jean! — Ah! my poor little Jean!”

Worn out by the emotion and fatigue of the night
before, he fell asleep, holding me in his arms. And I,
seized suddenly with a feeling of great pity, listened
to this unknown heart which for the first time was
beating close to mine.

It had been decided a few months previous to this
that I should not be sent to college, but that I should
have a private tutor. My father did not approve of
this method of education. But he had met with such
opposition that he thought best not to interfere, and
just as he had sacrificed his domination of husband
over wife, he also gave up his right of a father over
me. Now I was to have a tutor, for my father wanted
to remain faithful to the wishes of my mother even
when she was dead.

One fine morning I saw him arrive, a very grave-
looking gentleman, very blond, very close shaven, who
wore blue spectacles. Monsieur Jules Rigard had very
obsolete ideas on education, he carried himself with
the stiffness of a servant, and bore a sacerdotal air
which, far from encouraging me to learn, made all
study disgusting to me. He had been told without a
doubt that my mentality was slow and sluggish and,
as I understood nothing from his first lesson, he took

CALVARY 31

that judgment for granted and treated me like.an idiot.
It never occurred to him to penetrate into my young
mind, to hold converse with my heart; never did he
ask himself whether under this sad mask of a lonesome
child there were not hidden ardent aspirations quite
beyond my age, an all too passionate and restless na-
ture eager to know, which introspectively and mor-
bidly unfolded itself in the silence of secret thoughts
and mute ecstasies.

Monsieur Rigard stupefied me with Greek and
Latin, and that was all. Ah! how many children un-
derstood and guided properly, might have become
great if they ad not been permanently deformed by
this frightful crushing of their brains by an imbecile
father or an ignorant teacher. Is it all, then, to have
lustfully begotten you on an evening of passion, and
must not one continue the work of one’s life forces by
giving you intellectual nourishment as well, in order
that it may strengthen your life and provide you with
weapons to defend it. The truth was that my soul felt
even lonelier with my father than with my teacher!
Yet he did everything he could to please me. He
consciously, though stupidly, strove to show his love
for me. But when I was with him, he could never
find anything to tell me outside of foolish, idle tales,
bogey man stories, terrifying legends of the revolution
of 1848 which had left in him an invincible fear, or else
a tale of the brigandage of one Lebecq, a great repub-
lican who. scandalized the country by his passionate
opposition to the curé and his obduracy in refusing to
hang red bunting on the walls on national holidays.

Often he would take me along in his cabriolet, on
his business trips in the country and, when perplexed
as I was by the mystery of nature which every day
unfolded itself around me, I asked him questions, he
would not know how or what to answer and would

32 CALVARY

dodge the answer thus: “ You are too young to be
told that! Wait till you grow up.” And feeling mis-
erable by the side of the large body of my father which
swayed with the jolts of the road, I huddled up inside
the cabriolet, while my father was killing with the
stick of his whip the gad flies which swarmed on our
mare’s croup. Every now and then he would say: “I
have never seen such pestering things; we'll have
storm, that’s sure.”

In the church of Saint-Michel, inside a small chapel,
illumined by the red glimmer of a window, upon an
altar ornamented with embroidery and vases full of
flowers, stood a statue of the Virgin. She had a pink
body, a blue cloak bespangled with silver stars, a lilac-
colored robe whose folds fell modestly upon gilt san-
dals. . . . In her arms she held a child, rosy and nude
with a golden halo around its head, and the eyes of
the mother rested rapturously upon the child. For
several months this plaster Virgin was my sole friend,
and the entire time which I could steal from my les-
sons I used to spend before this image, contemplating
its tender colors. She appeared to me so beautiful, so
kind and sweet that no human creature could rival in
beauty, kindness and sweetness this painted piece of
statuary which spoke to me in an unknown and de-
lightful language and from which there came to me
something like the intoxicating odor of incense and
myrrh. When near her I was in truth a different
child; I felt how rosier my cheeks were getting, how
my blood was flowing more vigorously in my veins,
how my thoughts disentangled themselves more easily
and quickly ; it seemed to me that the black veil which
hung over my mentality was gradually being lifted,
revealing new lights to me.

Marie was made an accomplice in my stealthy
flights to the church; she often led me to the chapel

CALVARY 33

where I remained for hours conversing with the Vir-
gin, while the old nurse fervently recited her Rosary, »
kneeling before the altar. She had to get me out of
my state of ecstasy by force, because otherwise, ab-
sorbed as I had been in the dreams which transported
me to heaven, I would never have thought of returning
home. My passion for this Virgin became so strong
that away from her I was miserable and wished I had
never left her at all. “Monsieur Jean will surely be-
come a priest,” old Marie used to say. It was like a
yearning for possession, like a violent desire to take
her, to entwine her, to cover her with kisses.

I took a notion to make a sketch of her: with what
love, it would be impossible for you to imagine. When
the statue had taken on a semblance of crude form on
the paper, it gave me joy without end. All the energy
in me that I could put forward I employed in this
work, which I thought admirable and superhuman.
More than twenty times I started the drawing over
again, incensed with the crayon for not conforming
to the delicacy of the lines, incensed with the paper
upon which the image would not appear as live and
real as I should have liked to see it. I was rabid on
this point. My will was bent upon this unique goal.
At length I succeeded in giving more or less exact
substance to my idea of the plaster Virgin — but how
naive an idea it was. And immediately thereafter I
stopped thinking of it. An inner voice had told me
that nature was more beautiful, more moving, more
splendid, and I began to notice the sun which caressed
the trees, which played upon the pentiles of the roof,
covered the grass with gold, illumined the rivers; and
I began to listen to all the palpitations of life, whose
puffed up creatures scourge the earth like a body of
flesh. |

34 CALVARY

The years rolled by, wearisome and void. I re-
mained gloomy, wild, always shut up within myself,
fond of running about in the fields, penetrating into
the very heart of the forest. It seemed to me that at
least there, lulled by the grand voices of things, I was
less alone and I felt more alive. Without being en-
dowed with that terrible gift which certain natures
have of analyzing themselves, questioning themselves,
searching without end for the reason of their actions,
I often asked myself who I was and what I wanted.
Alas! I was nobody and did not want anything.

My childhood had been spent in darkness, my ado-
lescence was passed in a void; not having been a child
I could no more be a young man. I lived in a sort of
fog. A thousand thoughts were agitating me, but they
were so confused that I could not seize upon their
form; none of them detached itself clearly from this
depth of opaque mist. I had some aspirations; some
exalted notions, but it would have been impossible for
me to formulate them, to explain their cause or reason.
It would have been impossible for me to say into
which world of reality or dream they transplanted me;
I had fits of infinite tenderness, in which my whole
being would lose itself, but for whom or for what this
feeling was intended, I did not know. Sometimes, all
of a sudden, I would abandon myself to tears, but the
reason for these tears? In truth, I knew not. What
was certain was that nothing was to my liking, that I
did not see any purpose in living, that I felt myself
incapable of any effort.

Children usually say: “I'll be a general, priest, phy-
sician, innkeeper.” I never said anything of the kind,
never; never did I tear myself loose from the present;
never did I venture a glimpse into the future. Man
appeared to me like a tree which spread out its foliage
and stretched out its limbs into the stormy skies, with-

CALVARY 35

out knowing which flower would bloom at its foot,
which birds would sing at its top, or which thunder-
bolt would fell it to the ground. And notwithstanding
that, the feeling of moral solitude in which I found
myself oppressed and frightened me. I could not open
my heart to my father, to my teacher or to anybody
else. I had no friend, not a living soul who could un-
derstand, guide or love me. My father and preceptor
were disheartened by my waywardness, and in the
country I passed for a feebleminded maniac. In
spite of everything, however, I was permitted to take
my college entrance examinations, and though neither
my father nor myself had any idea as to what I should
take up, I went to Paris to study law. “ Law will get
you anywhere,” my father used to say.

Paris amazed me. It struck me like a place of
tempestuous uproar and raving madness. Individuals
and throngs were passing by, strange, incoherent,
hurrying to work which I imagined terrible and mon-
strous. Knocked down by horses, jostled by men,
deafened by the roar of the city always in motion like
some colossal and hellish factory, blinded by the glare
of lights to which I was not accustomed, I roamed
about the city in the strange dream of a demented one.
I was very much surprised to find trees there. How
could they grow there, in that soil of pavements, how
could they shoot upwards in the forest of stone, amidst
the rumbling noise of men, their branches lashed by
_ evil winds?

It took me a long time to get used to this life which
seemed to me the reverse of nature; and from the
depths of this boiling hell my thoughts would often
wander back to the peaceful fields way yonder which
brought to my nostrils the delicious odor of dug up
and fertile soil; back to the green retreats of the woods,
where I heard only the light rustling of the leaves,

36 CALVARY

and from time to time in the resonant depths, the dull
blows of the ax and the almost human groans of the
old oak trees. Nevertheless, curiosity often drove me
out of my small room which I occupied on Rue Ou-
dinot, and I sauntered along the streets, the boule-
vards, the river banks impelled by a feverish desire
for walking, my fingers twitching from nervousness,
my brains squashed, as it were, by the gigantic and
intense activity of Paris, my senses in some way
thrown out of balance by all these colors, odors,
sounds, by the perversion and strangeness of the con-
tact so new to me. The more I mingled with the
crowds, the more intoxicated I became with this up-
roar, the more I saw multitudes of human lives pass
by, brushing one another, indifferent to one another,
without apparent attachment, and saw others surge
forward, disappear and emerge again and so on for-
ever — the more I felt the overwhelming sense of in-
exorable loneliness.

At Saint-Michel, although I was lonely, I at least
knew some human beings and objects. Everywhere I
had points of reference by which my spirit was guided;
the back of a peasant bent over his glebe, the ruins of
a building at the turn of the road, a ditch, a dog, a
clay pit, a charming face — everything there was fa-
miliar to me, if not dear. At Paris everything was
strange and unknown to me. In this frightful haste
with which all seemed to be moving about, in the pro-
found selfishness, in this giddy obliviousness to one
another into which they were all precipitated, how
could one retain even for a single moment the atten-
tion of these people, these phantoms; I don’t speak of
the attention of tenderness or pity, but of that of
simple notice! ... One day I saw a man who killed
another: he was admired and his name was soon on
everybody’s lips; the next morning I saw a woman

CALVARY 37

who lifted her skirt going through obscene motions:
the crowd followed her.

Being awkward, ignorant of the ways of the world,
very timid, I found it hard to make friends. I never
even set foot in the homes where I was recommended,
for fear of appearing ridiculous. I had been invited
for dinner to the home of a cousin of my mother’s who
was rich and kept a large retinue. The sight of the
mansion, the footmen in the vestibule, the lights, the
carpets, the heavy perfume of smothered flowers — all
this frightened me and I fled, knocking down on the
stairway a woman in a red cloak who got up and
started to laugh at my bewildered look.

The noisy gayety of the young men, my school com-
rades, whom I had met at the lectures, at the restau-
rants, in the cafés, was not to my liking either. The
coarseness of their pleasures hurt me, and the women,
with their eyes colored with bistre, their overpainted
lips, their cynicism and shameless speech and behavior
did not tempt me at all. One evening, however, when
my nerves were all wrought up, and I was driven by a
sudden rutting of the flesh, I went into a house of ill-
fame and left it burning with shame, despising myself,
remorseful and with the sensation of filth on my skin.
What! Was it from this slimy and loathsome act that
men were born! From this time on I looked at women
more frequently, but my look was no longer chaste,
and fixed upon them as upon some impure images, it
was searching for sex and stripping them under the
folds of their clothes. I came to know their secret
vices, which rendered me still more dejected, restless
and out of sorts.

A kind of crapulous torpor settled down upon me.
I used to stay in bed several days at a stretch, sunk in
the brutishness of obscene dreams, awakened now and
then by sudden nightmares, by painful attacks of heart-

38 CALVARY

ache which caused my skin to perspire. In my room,
behind drawn curtains, I was thus living like a corpse
which was conscious of its death and which from the
depth of its grave in the frightful night could hear the
stamping of many feet and the rumble of the city about
it. Sometimes, tearing myself loose from this dejec-
tion, I went out. But what was I going todo? Where
could I go? I was indifferent to everything, and I
had not a single desire or curiosity. With fixed gaze,
with heavy drooping head and listless, I used to walk
straight ahead, without purpose, and I would end by
flinging myself on a bench in the Luxembourg, senilely
shrunk into myself, lying motionless for many hours,
without seeing anything, without hearing anything,
without asking myself why there were children about
me, why there were birds singing, why young couples
passed. ... Naturally I was not working and did not
think of anything. ...

Then war came, then defeat... . Despite the oppo-
sition of my father, despite the entreaties of old Marie,
I enlisted.

CHAPTER II

UR regiment was what is called a march regi-
ment, that is, one formed while on the march.

It had been made up at Mans, after much
trouble, of all the remains of a corps of dissimilar
fighting units which encumbered the city. Zuaves,
mobilized soldiers, of franc-tireurs, forestry guards,
dismounted cavalrymen, including gendarmes, Span-
iards and Wallachians— there were troops of every
kind and description, and they were all under the
command of an old captain quickly promoted for the
occasion to the rank of lieutenant colonel. At that
time, such promotions were not infrequent. The gaps
of human flesh wrought in the ranks of the French by
the cannons of Wissembourg and Sedan had to be
filled. Several companies lacked officers.

At the head of mine was a little lieutenant of the
reserves, a young man of twenty, frail and pallid and
so weak that after marching a few kilometers he was
out of breath, dragged his feet and usually reached his
destination in an ambulance wagon. The poor little
devil! It was enough to look at him to make him
blush, and never did he allow himself to issue orders
for fear of appearing ridiculous. We jeered at him
because of his timidity and weakness, and no doubt
because he was kind and would sometimes distribute
cigars and meat supplies to the men. I quickly inured
myself to this new life, carried away by examples and
overexcited by the fever about me. And reading the
heartbreaking reports of our lost battles, I felt myself
transported by enthusiasm which, however, was not
mingled with any thought of my threatened father-

40 CALVARY

land. We remained a month in Mans for training, to
get our full equipment and to frequent cabarets and
houses of ill-fame. At last, October 3, we started out.

Composed of stray units, of detachments without
officers, of straggling volunteers poorly equipped,
poorly fed and more often not fed at all,— without co-
hesion, without discipline, everyone thinking of him-
self only, and driven by a unique feeling of ferocious-
ness, implacable selfishness ; some wearing police caps,
others having silk handkerchiefs wrapped round their
heads; still others wearing artillery pants and vests of
batmen—we were marching along the highways,
ragged, harassed and in an ugly mood.

For twelve days since we had been incorporated into
a brigade of recent formation, we were tramping across
the fields like madmen and to no purpose, as it were.
Today marching to the right, tomorrow to the left,
one day covering a stretch of forty kilometers, the
next day going back an equal distance, we were mov-
ing in the same circle, like a scattered herd of cattle
which has lost its shepherd. Our enthusiasm dimin-
ished appreciably. Three weeks of suffering were
enough for that. Before we could ever hear the roar
of cannon and the whiz of bullets, our forward march
resembled a retreat of a conquered army, cut to pieces
by cavalry charges and precipitated into wild con-
fusion. It was like a panicky flight in which each one
was allowed to shift for himself. How often did I see
soldiers getting rid of their cartridges by scattering
them along the roads?

“What good will they do me?” one of them said.
“TI don’t need them at all except one to crack the jaw
of our captain, the first chance we get to fight.”

In the evening, in camp, squatted around the por-
ridge pot or stretched out on the cold furze, with heads
resting on their knapsacks, they were thinking of the

CALVARY 41

homes from which they had been taken by force. All
the young men, strong and healthy, had come from
the villages. Many of them were already sleeping in
the ground way yonder, disembowelled by shells;
others with shattered backs, like shadows, were strag-
gling in the fields and in the woods awaiting death.
In the small country places, left to sorrow, there were
only old men, more stooped than ever, and women who
wept. The barn-floors where they thrashed corn were
mute and closed, in the deserted fields where weeds
sprouted, one no longer saw against the purple back-
ground of the sunset the silhouette of the laborer re-
turning home, keeping step with his tired horses. And
men with long sabres would come and in the name of
the law take away the horses one day and empty the
cowshed the next; for it was not enough that war
should glut itself with human flesh, it was necessary
that it should also devour beasts, the earth itself,
everything that lived in the calm and peace of labor
and love.... And at the bottom of the hearts of all
these miserable soldiers whose emaciated frames and
flagged limbs were lit up by the sinister glare of camp
fires— there was one hope, the hope of the coming
battle, that is to say, the hope of flight, of butt turned
upwards, and of the German fortress.

Nevertheless we were preparing for the defence of
the country which we traversed and which was no
longer threatened. To accomplish that we thought it
would be best to fell trees and scatter them on the
roads; we blew up bridges and desecrated cemeteries
at the entrance to villages under the pretext of barri-
cading them, and we compelled the inhabitants at the
point of the bayonet to help us in the destruction of
their property. Then we would depart, leaving behind
us nothing but ruin and hatred. I remember one time
we had to raze a very beautiful park to the last stad-

42 CALVARY

dling, in order to build barracks which we never used
at all. Our manner of doing things was not at all
such as to reassure the people. And so at our approach
the houses were shut, the peasants hid their provisions ;
everywhere we were met by hostile faces, surly mouths
and empty hands. There were bloody scuffles over
some potted pork discovered in a cupboard, and the
general ordered an old and kindly man shot for hiding
a few kilograms of salted pork under a heap of manure.

The first of November we marched all day and
about three o’clock we arrived at the railroad station
of Loupe. There was great disorder and unspeakable
confusion at first. Many, leaving the ranks, scattered
in the direction of the city, ten kilometers away, and
disappeared in the neighboring cabarets. For more
than an hour the bugles sounded a rally. Mounted
men were sent to the city to bring back the runaways,
but they themselves lingered there to get a drink.
There was a rumor afloat that a train made up at
Nogent-le-Rotrou was supposed to take us to Chartres
menaced by the Prussians who were said to have
sacked Maintenon and were camping at Jouy. A
workman questioned by our sergeant said that he did
not know anything about it, nor did he hear anything
ever said about it. The general, rather old, short,
stout and gesticulating, who could hardly sit up in his
saddle, galloped hither and thither, shaking and sway-
ing like a drunkard on his saddle horse and with pur-
ple face, bristled moustach, repeated without end:

“Ah! scoundrel!... Ah! scoundrel of scoundrels! ...”

He dismounted, assisted by his orderly; his legs
got tangled up in the leather strap of his sabre which
dragged on the ground, and having called over the
station master, entered into a most animated conver-
sation with the latter whose countenance showed per-
plexity.

CALVARY 43

“How about the mayor?” shouted the general.
“Where is that scoundrel? Get me that fellow!...
Are they trying to make a fool out of me here or
what!”

He was out of breath, sputtered out unintelligible
words, stamped his feet and scolded the station mas- _
ter. Finally both of them, one with a mien of humility, ©
the other gesticulating furiously, disappeared into the
telegraph office from which there came to us the click-
ing of the apparatus, frenzied, excited, interrupted
from time to time by the outbursts of the general. At
last it was decided to draw us up on the quay in com- |
pany formation, and we were left there standing, knap-
sack on the ground, in front of the formed arm racks.
... Night came, rain fell, drizzling and cold, penetrat-
ing through our uniforms already drenched by show-
ers. Here and there the road was lit up by small dim
lights, rendering more sombre than ever the store-
houses and the mass of wagons which men were push-
ing into a shed. And the derrick crane standing up-
right on the turning platform projected its long neck
against the sky like a bewildered giraffe.

Apart from coffee which we gulped down hurriedly
in the morning, we did not eat anything all day, and
although fatigue had worn out our bodies and hunger
clutched our stomachs, we anticipated with horror
that we would have to go without supper today. Our
gourd-bottles were empty, our supplies of biscuits and
bacon exhausted, and the wagons of the commissary
department which had gone astray had not yet joined
our columns. Several among us grumbled, made
threats and voiced their rebellious feelings aloud, but’
the no less dejected officers who were promenading in
front of the arm racks, did not seem to take notice of
it. I consoled myself with the thought that the general
had perhaps requisitioned food in the city. It was a

44 CALVARY

vain hope. The time passed, the rain kept steadily
drumming on the hollow mess plates and the general
continued swearing at the station master who in turn
went on avenging himself verbally on the telegraph,
the click of which became more and more violent and
erratic. From time to time trains came up over-
crowded with troops. Soldiers of the reserve, light
infantry units, bare-breasted, bare-headed, with loose
cravats, some of them drunk and wearing their kepis
wrong side up, deserted the wagons where they were
parked, invaded the taverns and even relieved them-
selves in public impudently. From this swarm of hu-
man heads, from this stamping on the floor of the cars
by multitudes there emanated oaths, sounds of the
Marseillaise, obscene songs which mingled with shouts
of the gangs of workmen, with the tinkling of bells,
with the panting of machines.... I recognized a little
boy from Saint-Michel whose swollen eyelids oozed,
who coughed and spat blood. I asked him where they
were going. He did not know. Having left Mans,
they were held up at Connerre for twelve hours with-
out food because of congestion on the road,—too
crowded to lie down and sleep. He hardly had
strength enough to speak. He went into a tavern to
rinse his eyes with warm water. I shook hands with
him, and he said he sincerely hoped that in the first
battle the Germans would make a prisoner of him... .
And the train pulled out, disappeared in the night,
carrying all these wan faces, all these bodies already
vanquished toward what useless and _ bloody
slaughters?

I shivered with cold. Under the icy rain which
drenched me to the very marrow, I felt a _ ter-
rible cold penetrating me. It seemed as if my mem-
bers were getting numb. I took advantage of the con-
fusion caused by the arrival of a train to reach the

CALVARY - 45

open gate and run out on the road in search of a house
or cover where I could warm myself, find a piece of
bread or something. The inns and public places near
the station were guarded by sentries who had orders
not to let anyone in. ... Three hundred yards away I
noticed a few windows which shone gently in the
night. These lights looked to me like two kindly
eyes, two eyes filled with pity which called me, smiled
to me, caressed me.... It was a small house isolated
a few strides away from the road. I ran toward it. .

A sergeant accompanied by four men was there,
shouting and swearing. Near the fireplace without a
fire, I saw an old man seated on a very low wicker
chair, his elbows resting on his knees, his face buried
in his hands. A candle burning in an iron candlestick
lit up half of his face hollowed and furrowed by deep
wrinkles.

“ Will you give us some wood, I am asking you for
the last time?” shouted the sergeant.

“T ain’t got no wood,” answered the old man... .
“It’s been eight days since the troops passed here, I
tell you.... They took everything away.’

He huddled himself up on the chair and in a feeble
voice muttered:

“Tain’t got...nothing... Nothing!...”

“ Don’t act the rogue, you old rascal... . Ah, you
are hiding your wood to warm the Prussians. ... Well
I am going to knock those Prussians out of your head.”

The old man shook his head:

“ But if I ain’t got no wood....”

With angry gestures the sergeant commanded the
soldiers to search the house. They examined every-
thing, looked everywhere from cellar to garret. They
found nothing, nothing but evidence of plunder and
some broken furniture. In the cellar, damp with
spilled cider, the casks were broken open and over the

46 - CALVARY

whole there spread a hideously offensive stench. That
exasperated the sergeant who struck the flat end of
the butt of his musket.

“Come on,” he shouted, “ come on, you old sloven,
tell us where your wood is,” and he rudely shook the
old man who tottered and almost struck his head
against the andiron of the fireplace.

“T ain’t got no wood,” the poor man simply repeated.

“ Ah! you are getting stubborn! ... Yiou have no
wood you say! Well, look here, you have chairs, a
buffet, a table, a bed . . . if you don’t tell me where
your wood is I’ll burn it all up.”

The old man did not protest. Shaking his aged
white head he again repeated:

“T ain’t got no wood.”

I wanted to intercede and muttered a few words;
but the sergeant did not let me finish. He took me in
from head to foot with a look of contempt.

“What are you doing around here, you errand simp
you? Who gave you permission to leave the ranks,
you dirty, snotty-nosed trash? Come on, face about
double step, march!...Tarata tara, tatara!...”

Then he gave the command. In a few minutes the
chairs, the tables, the buffet, the bed were dashed to
pieces. The kindly man raised himself with some ef-
fort, went into the farthest corner of the room; and
while the fire was being made, while the sergeant,
whose cloak and trousers were steaming, was warm-
ing himself laughingly in front of the crackling fire,
the old man was watching the burning of his last piece
of furniture with eyes of a stoic, and never stopped
repeating obstinately :

“T ain’t got no wood.”

I went back to the station. The general had come
out of the telegraph office more excited and flushed
and angry than ever. He jabbered out something and

CALVARY. 47

presently brought about a great commotion. The
clang of sabres was heard, voices called out and an-
swered one another, officers were running in all direc-
tions. The bugle sounded. Without the least under-
standing of this counter order, we had to put our
knapsacks on our backs and the guns on our shoulders.

Forward! March!...

With bodies rendered rigid by immobility and with
dizzy heads, we pushed and jostled one another and
resumed our breathless journey in the rain, in the mud,
through the night!... To the right and the left of us
there were long stretches of fields swallowed up in the
shadows from which rose the crowns of apple trees
which appeared to be twisted in the skies. From time
to time the barking of a dog was heard from afar....
There were deep forests, sombre thickets which rose
like walls on each side of the road. Then came villages
asleep, where our steps resounded even more mourn-
fully, or where at a window quickly opened and quickly
closed again, there appeared the vague outline of a
human white form... terrified.... Then again fields
and woods and villages.... Nota single song, not a
single word, only an immense silence, accentuated by
the rhythm of the tramping feet. The leather straps
of the knapsack cut into my flesh, the rifle felt like a
red hot iron bar placed upon my shoulder. For a mo-
ment I thought myself harnessed to a huge wagon,
loaded with broad stone and stuck in the mud and felt
that the carters were breaking my legs with the lashes
of whips. With my feet planted in the ground, my
spine bent in two, with outstretched neck, strangled
by the bit, my lungs emitting a rattling sound, I was
pulling and pulling. ... Pretty soon I reached a state
where I was no longer conscious of anything. I was
marching in a state of torpor, like an automaton, as if
in a trance.... Strange hallucinations flitted before

48 CALVARY

my eyes. I saw a glowing road receding into space,
lined with palatial mansions and brilliant lights... .
Strange scarlet flowers swayed their corollz in the air
on the top of flexible stems, and a crowd of gay people
were singing at tables laden with refreshments and
delicious fruit... . Women with fluttering gauze skirts
were dancing on illumined lawns, to the music of nu-
merous orchestras hidden in the grove strewn with
falling leaves, adorned with jasmines, sprinkled with
water.

“ Halt!” commanded the sergeant.

I stopped, and in order not to sink down to the
ground I had to hold on to the arm of a comrade. I
awoke from my trance. . . . Darkness was all around
me. We had come to the entrance of a forest, near a
small town where the general and most of the officers
went to find quarters. Having pitched my tent, I oc-
cupied myself with rubbing my feet, the skin of which
was peeling off, with a candle which I had hidden in
my knapsack, and like an emaciated dog, stretched
myself out on the wet ground and immediately fell
asleep. During the night, fellow-soldiers who, ex-
hausted with fatigue, |had dropped out of the ranks on
the road, kept on coming into camp. Of these, five
men were never heard from. It was ever so at each
difficult march. Some of the men, weak or sick, fell
into the ditches and died there; others deserted. ...

The next morning reveille was sounded at dawn.
The night had been extremely cold, it never stopped
raining and we could not get any straw litter or hay
to sleep on. It was very difficult for me to get out of
the tent; for a while I was obliged to crawl on my
knees on all fours, my legs refusing to carry me. My
limbs were frozen stiff like bars of iron, I could not
move my head on my paralyzed neck, and my eyes
which felt as if they had been pricked by numerous

CALVARY 49

tiny needles, kept shedding tears in ceaseless streams.
... At the same time I felt an acute, lancinating, un-
bearable pain in my back and shoulders. I noticed
that my comrades fared no better. With drawn faces
of ghostly pallor they were advancing, some limping
piteously, others bent down and staggering over
clumps of underbrush —all lame, mournful and cov-
ered with mud. I saw several men who, seized with
the colic, writhed and twisted their mouths, holding
their hands to their bellies. Some of them were shiv-
ering with fever, and their teeth chattered with cold.
All around us one could hear dry coughs rending hu-
man breasts, groans, short and raucous breathing. A
hare ventured out of its cover and fled wildly, with its
ears flapping, but no one thought of pursuing the ani-
mal as we used sometimes to do. After the roll call,
foodstuffs were distributed, as the commissary re-
gained our regiment. We made some soup which we
ate as greedily as half-starved dogs.

I was still suffering. After the soup I had an at-
tack of dizziness followed by vomiting, and I shook
with fever. Everything around me was in a whirl —
the tents, the forest, the fields, the small town way
yonder, whose chimneys were smoking in the mist,
and the sky where huge clouds were floating, bleak
and low. I asked the sergeant for permission to see a
doctor.

Our tents were arranged in two rows, backed against
the forest on each side of the road of Senonches which
led into the open country through a magnificent grove
of oak trees, crossed the Chartre road three hundred
meters away and still further the town of Belhomert
and extended farther toward Loupe. At the crossing
of these two roads there was a small dilapidated build-
ing covered with thatch, a sort of abandoned shed
which provided shelter for the laborers on the road

50 CALVARY

during rain. It was here that the surgeon had estab-
lished a sort of improvised field hospital recognizable
by a Red Cross flag put up in a crack in the wall and
adorning it.

In front of the house a crowd was waiting. A long
line of human beings, wan and worn out, some stand-
ing with fixed looks, others sitting on the ground,
sad with stooped and pointed shoulders, their heads
buried in their hands. Death had already laid its
terrible hand upon these emaciated countenances, these
scraggy frames, these members which hung loose,
devoid of blood and marrow. And confronted with
this heartbreaking sight, I forgot my own suffering,
and my heart was touched with pity. Three months
were sufficient to break down these robust bodies,
inured to labor and fatigue! ... Three months! And
these young men who loved life, these children of the
soil who grew up as dreamers in the freedom of the
fields, trusting in the goodness of nature, these youths
were done for! ... To the marine who dies is given
the sea as a burying place; he descends into eternal
darkness to the rhythm of its murmuring waves. But
these! ...A few more days of grace perhaps, and
then these tatterdemallions will suddenly tumble
down into the mud of a ditch, their corpses delivered
up to the fangs of prowling dogs and to the beaks of
‘nightbirds.

I was swept by a feeling of such brotherly and sorrow-
ful pity for them that I wished I could press all these
unhappy men to my breast, in a single embrace, and
I wished, oh, how ardently I wished it!—I had a
hundred female breasts, like Isis, swollen with milk,
that I might offer to all these bloodless lips. . . They
were entering the house one by one and were leaving
it as quickly, pursued by growling and swearing sounds.
For the rest, the surgeon did not bother with them at

CALVARY 51

all. Very angry, he was demanding of his orderly his
medicine chest which was missing from the luggage.

“ My medicine chest, for God’s sake!” he shouted.
“Where is my medicine chest? And my instrument
case? .. What did you do with my instrument case?
Ah! for God’s sake! .. .”

A little soldier of the reserves who suffered from
an abscess on his knee came back hopping on one foot,
crying, pulling his hair in despair. They did not want
to attend to him. When it was my turn to go in I
was all atremble. Inside the place which was dark,
four patients, lying flat in the straw, were emitting
rattling sounds like the cock of a musket; a fifth one
was gesticulating, muttering incoherent words in de-
lirium; still another, half-reclining, with head drooped
on his chest, was moaning and asking for a drink in a
feeble voice, the voice of an infant. Squatted in front
of the fire place, an attendant was holding over the
flame, on the end of a stick, a piece of stale pudding
whose stench of burned grease filled the room. The
adjutant did not even look at me. He shouted:

“Well, what’s the matter now? ...A bunch of
lazy buggers. A good ten league run at a stretch will
fix you up, you straggler.... Face about!.... March!”

On the threshold I met a peasant woman who
asked me:

“Ts this the place where you can see the doctor.”

“Women now!” growled the adjutant. ‘“ What do
you want now?”

“Beg pardon, excuse me, Doctor,” rejoined the
peasant woman, who came up very timidly. “I came
for my son who is a soldier.”

“Tell me now, old woman, am I here to keep track
of your son, or what?”

With her hands crossed on the handle of her um-
brella, timorous, she examined the place about her.

52 CALVARY

“It seems like he is very sick, my son is, very, very
sick. .. And so I came to see if he was not around
here, Doctor.”

“What’s your name?”

“My name is Riboulleau.”

“Riboulleau.... Riboulleau! ... That may be....
look in that pile there.”

The attendant who was broiling his pudding turned
his head.

“ Riboulleau,” he said, “why he has been dead —
three days already. . .”

“What is that you are saying?” cried the peasant
woman whose sunburned face suddenly became pallid.
“Where did he die? ... Why did he die, my little
darling boy.”

The adjutant intervened, and rudely pushing the
old woman toward the door, shouted:

“Go on, go on, no scenes around here! Well, he is
dead — and that is all there is to it.”

“My little darling boy! My little darling boy!”
wailed the old woman in a heart-breaking manner.

I walked away with a heavy heart and felt so dis-
couraged that I was asking myself whether it was not
better to put an end to it all at once by hanging myself
on the branch of a tree or by blowing my brains out
with the gun. While I was going to my tent, stum-
bling on the way, I was hardly paying any attention to
the little soldier who, having stopped at the foot of a
pine tree, had opened his abscess with his knife him-
self, and, pale, with sweat drops rolling all over his
forehead, was bandaging his bleeding wound.

In the morning I felt a great deal better than I
thought I would. I was relieved of all work, and after
having greased my rifle which became rusted in the
rain, I enjoyed a few hours of rest. Stretched out on
my blanket, with my body torpid in delicious half

CALVARY 53

slumber where I distinctly heard all the noises of the
camp —the sounding of the bugle, the neighing of
the horses as if coming from afar —I was thinking of
the people and the things I had left behind me. A
thousand images and a thousand scenes of the past
rapidly filed before my eyes. I saw again the Priory,
my dead mother and my father, with his large straw
hat and the short beggar with his flaxen hair and
Felix squatted in the lettuce patches, lying in wait
for a mole. I saw again my study room, my school
mates and, topping the noise of the Bal Bullier, Nini, .
her hair loose and brown, with her ruddy neck and her
pink stockings showing like some lascivious flower
from under the skirt raised in dancing. Then the
image of an unknown woman in a yellow dress, whom
I noticed in the shadow of a box in a theatre one
evening, came back to me — an insistent and sweet
vision.

During this time the strongest among us had gone
out to roam in the fields and on the farms. They came
back merrily carrying bundles of straw, chickens, tur-
keys and ducks. One of them was driving before him
with a switch, a big, grunting pig; another was
balancing a sheep on his shoulder. At the end of a
halter the latter was also dragging a calf which,
tangled up in the rope, resisted comically and shook
its snout, bellowing all the time. The peasants came
up running to the camp to complain that they had
been robbed; they were hooted and driven out.

The general, very stiff and with round eyes, came
to review us in the afternoon, accompanied by our
lieutenant who walked at his right. His shiny look,
his flushed cheeks, his mealy voice bore witness to
the fact that he had had a plentiful breakfast. He was
munching the end of an extinguished cigar; he spat,
sniffed, swore. One could not tell at whom or what,

54 CALVARY

for he did not address himself to any one in particular.
When standing in front of our company, he looked at
our lieutenant-colonel severely, and I heard him say:

“Your men are dirty slops!”

Then he walked away, his body weighed down by
his belly, dragging his feet, dressed in yellow boots
above which red breeches swelled and folded like a
skirt.

The rest of the day was\devoted to loitering in the
taverns of Belhomert. There was such crowding and
such noise everywhere, and besides I knew so well
these fights in the cabarets, these violent outbursts as
a result of drunkenness which often degenerated into
general scuffles, that I preferred to go out on the road,
far from all these brawls, in the company of a few
peaceable comrades.

Just then the weather grew better, dim sunlight
came from the sky freed from clouds. We seated our-
selves on the side of a sloping hill, bending our backs
under the warm sun rays as does a cat under the hand
that caresses it. Vehicles kept passing by, heavy
carts, dung carts, small carriages with awning hoods,
rubbish carts drawn by small mules. Those were the
peasants of Chartres valley who were fleeing from the
Prussians. . . . Excited by rumors, spread from village
to village, of burnings, robberies, murders and all
kinds of atrocities committed by the Germans in the
invaded territories, they were carrying away in haste
their most precious possessions, abandoning their
homes and their fields and, utterly bewildered, were
proceeding straight ahead, without knowing where
they were going. In the evening they would stop at
some chance road, near a town, sometimes in the open
fields. The horses, unharnessed and fettered, browsed
on the river banks, the people ate and slept at Ged’s
mercy, guarded by dogs, in storm and rain, in the cold

CALVARY 55

of foggy nights. Then in the morning they would
start out again. Droves of animals, and throngs of
men succeeded one another alternately. They were
passing by us, and upon the yellow main road one
could see the black and mournful procession of the
refugees as far as the hill closing the horizon: one
might think it was an exodus of a whole people. I
questioned an old man who led a donkey pulling a
cart, at the bottom of which in the midst of bundles,
tied with kerchiefs, and carrots and heads of cabbage,
on a pile of straw there shifted about a peasant woman
with a flat nose, two pink-colored pigs and a few do-
mestic fouls tied by their feet in twos.

“Eh, the robbers!” the old man replied. “ Don’t
speak to me about them!... They came one morning,
a whole gang of them with plumed hats. ... They
raised such a racket! ... Eh, Holy Jesus! And then
they took everything away. ... Well I thought they
were the Prussians. ... I have found out since that
they were the ‘franc-tireurs’. . .”

“ How about the Prussians?”

“The Prussians! . . . Of them that are Prussians I
have seen very few to be sure. ... They are supposed
to be up at our place right now! ... Jacqueline thinks
she saw one behind the hedge the other day!... He
was tall, very tall and he was as red as the devil....
Is he really one of these fellows, those savages that
came?... Now tell me truly who are they?”

“Those are Germans, old man, just as we are
French.” .

“Germans? ... So I hear. ... But what do they
want, those damned Germans, will you please tell me,
mister soldier? ... Well, I have saved two pigs, our
girl and all our poultry just the same!... By Jove!”

And the peasant continued on his way, repeating:

56 CALVARY

“The Germans! the Germans! ... What do these
damned Germans want?”

That evening fires were made along the entire line
of the camp, and the attractive looking pots full of
fresh meat were hissing joyously upon the improvised
stoves of earth and stone. For us that was a time of
exquisite respite and delicious forgetfulness. Peace
seemed to have descended from heaven, all blue with
the moon and aglitter with stars; the fields, unrolling
themselves with soft and misty undulations, had in
them a kind of tender sweetness which penetrated into
our souls and set new blood, less acrid and endowed
with new vigor, circulating in our members. Little by
little, memories of our hardships, our discourage-
ments and privations, however near, effaced them-
selves, and simultaneously with the awakening of our
sense of duty, a desire for action seized us. Unusual
animation reigned at our camp. Every one offered
voluntarily to do some kind of work; some, torch in
hand, were running about to light again the fires which
went out, others were blowing at the ashes in order
to kindle them into flame again, still others were sort-
ing vegetables and slicing meat. Some comrades,
forming a circle around the débris of burned timber,
struck up a tune “Have you seen Bismark?” in a
jeering chorus. Revolt—the child of hunger — had
its inception in the hissing of saucepans, in the clatter
of platters.

The next day, when the last of us answered “ Pres-
ent” at the roll call, the little lieutenant gave the
command: “ Form a circle, march!”

And in a faltering voice, jumbling the words and
skipping phrases, the quartermaster read a pompous
order of the day, issued by the general. In that piece
of military literature it was said that a Prussian army
corps, starving, ill-clad and without arms, after having

CALVARY 57

occupied Chartres, was advancing on us at double
marching time. Our task was to block its way, to
throw it back as far as the walls of Paris, where the
valiant Ducrot was only waiting for our arrival to
sally out and clean the land of all invaders at one
sweep. The general recalled the victories of the
Revolution, the Egypt expedition, Austerlitz, Boro-
dino. He expressed the faith that we would show
ourselves worthy of our glorious ancestors of Sambre-
et-Meuse. In view of that he gave precise strategic
instructions for the defense of the country, namely: to
establish an impregnable barrier to the eastern en-
trance to the town and another still more impregnable
barrier upon the road of Chartres, to fortify the walls
of the cemetery at the cross-road, to fell as many trees
as possible in the nearby forest so that the enemy
cavalry and even infantry should be unable to turn our
flank from Senonches under the cover of the woods,
to be on the lookout for spies, and finally to keep our
eyes open. ... The country was counting on us....
Long live the Republic!

The cheer was not responded to. The little lieu-
tenant who was walking around, his arms crossed on
his back, his eyes obstinately fixed on the point of his
boot, did not raise his head. We looked at one another
' perplexed, with a sort of anguish in our hearts, which
came as a result of our knowledge that the Prussians
were very near, that war was going to begin for us in
earnest the very next day, today perhaps. And I had
a sudden vision of Death, red Death standing on a
chariot, drawn by rearing horses, which was sweeping
down on us, brandishing his scythe. As long as the
actual fighting was only a remote possibility we
wanted to be in it, first for reasons of patriotism,
enthusiasm, then out of mere braggadocio, later be-
cause we were nervously exhausted and wearisome

58 CALVARY

and saw in it a way out of our misery. Now when
the opportunity offered itself, we were afraid; we
shuddered at the mere mention of it. Instinctively my
eyes turned toward the horizon, in the direction of
Chartres. And the fields seemed to me to conceal a
secret, unknown terror, a fearful uncertainty, which
lent to things a new aspect of relentlessness. Over
yonder, above the blue line of trees, I expected to see
helmets spring up suddenly, bayonets flash, the thun-
dering mouths of cannons spurt fire. A harvest field,
all red under the sun, appeared to me like a pond of
blood. Hedges strung themselves out into armies,
joined ranks, crossed one another like regiments, brist-
ling with arms and standards and going through var-
ious evolutions before the battle. The apple trees
looked frightened like cavalry men thrown into dis-
order.

“ Break the circle — march! ” shouted the lieutenant.

Stupefied, with swinging arms, we were standing
on one place for a long time, a prey to some vague
misgiving, trying to pierce in thought this terrible line
on the horizon, behind which was now being realized
the mystery of our fate. In this disquieting silence,
in this sinister immobility, only carts and herds were
passing by, more numerous, more hurried and pressed
than ever. A flock of ravens, which came from yonder
like a black vanguard, spotted the skies, thickened,
distended and, stringing itself out into a line, turned
aside, floating above us like a funeral cloak, then dis-
appeared among the oak trees.

“ At last we are going to see them, these famous
Prussians!” said, in a faltering voice, a big fellow
who was very pale and who, in order to give himself
the air of a fearless daredevil, was beating his ears
with his kepi.

No one replied to this remark and several walked

CALVARY 59

away. Our corporal, however, shrugged his shoulders.
He was a very impudent little man, with a pock-eaten
face, full of pimples.

“Oh! I!” he said.

He clarified his thought by a cynical gesture, sat
down on the heath, puffed at his pipe slowly, till fire
appeared.

“Oh, piffle!” he concluded, emitting a cloud of
smoke which vanished in the air.

While one company of chasseurs was detailed to
the crossroads to establish an “impregnable barrier”
there, my company went in the woods to “fell as
many trees as possible.” All the axes, bill-hooks
and hatchets of the village were speedily requisitioned.
Almost everything was used as a tool. For a whole day
the blows of the axes were resounding and trees were
falling. To spur us on to greater efforts, the general
himself wanted to assist us in the vandalism.

“Come on, you scamps!” he would cry out at every
occasion, clapping his hands. “Come on boys, let’s
get this one! .. .”

He himself pointed out the most stalwart among
the trees, those which grew up straight and spread
out like the columns of a temple. It was an orgy of
destruction, criminal and foolish; a shout of brutal joy
went up every time a tree fell on top of another with
a great noise. The old trees became less dense, one
could say they were mowed down by some gigantic
and supernatural scythe. Two men were killed by the
fall of an oak tree.

And the few trees which remained standing, austere
in the midst of ruined trunks lying on the ground, and
the twisted branches which rose up towards them like
arms outstretched in supplication, were showing open
wounds, deep and red gashes from which the sap was
oozing, weeping as it were.

60 CALVARY

The supervisor of the forest section, warned by a
guard, came running from Senonches, and with a
broken heart witnessed this useless devastation. I
was near the general when the forester approached
him respectfully, kepi in hand.

“ Beg pardon, general,” said he. “I can understand
the felling of trees on the edge of the road, the barri-
cading of lines of approach. ... But your destruction
of the heart of the old forest seems to me a little. . . .”

But the general interrupted:

“Eh? What? It seems to you what? ... What are
you butting in here for?... I do asI please.... Who
is commander here, you or I?.. .”

“ But. . . .” stammered the forester.

“There are no buts about it, Monsieur. ... You
make me tired, that’s one thing sure! ... You had
better hurry back to Senonches or I’ll have you strung
up on a tree.... Come on, boys!...”

The general turned his back on the stupefied agent
and walked away knocking some dead leaves and
sprigs before him with the end of his cane.

While we were thus desecrating the forest, the
chasseurs were not idle either, and the barricade rose,
huge and formidable, cutting off the road at the cross-
road. It was accomplished not without difficulty and
above all not without gayety. Suddenly halted by a
trench which barred their flight, the peasants pro-
tested. Their carts and herds became congested on
the road, very narrow at this point; there was, there-
fore, an indescribable uproar. They were complain-
ing, the women were moaning, the cattle were lowing,
the soldiers were laughing at the frightened looks
of men and beasts, and the captain who was in com-
mand of the troops did not know what action to take.
Several times the soldiers pretended to drive the peas-
ants back at the point of the bayonet, but the latter

CALVARY 61

were stubborn and determined to pass and invoked
their rights as Frenchmen. Having made his round
in the forest, the general went to see the progress
of the work on the barricade. He demanded to know
what “these dirty civilians” wanted. He was told
about it.

“All right,” he cried. “Seize all their carts and
throw them into the barricade. . . . Come on, get a
move on you, boys!...”

The soldiers, rejoicing in the opportunity, hurled
themselves on the first carts which stood abandoned
with everything in them, and smashed them with a
few blows of the pick-axe. A wild panic broke out
among the peasants. The congestion became so great
that it was impossible for them either to advance or
to turn back. Lashing their horses with all their
might and trying to extricate their impeded wagons,
they were shouting, jostling and bruising one another
without making a step backward. Those last arrived
had turned back and were going at full speed of their
horses excited by the tumult; others, despairing of
a chance to save their carts and provisions, climbed
over the barrier and, dispersing across the field,
uttered cries of indignation, pursued by oaths and
curses flung at them by the soldiers. Then, they piled
up the smashed vehicles one on top of the other, filled
the gaps with sacks of oats, matresses, bundles of
clothes and stones. On top of the barricade, upon a
coach pole, which rose vertically upward like a flag-
staff, a little chasseur planted a bouquet of wedding
flowers found among other booty.

Towards the evening, groups of reserves arriving
from Chartres in great disorder, scattered all over
Belhomert and the camp. They brought horrible
tales. The Prussians were more than a hundred thou-
sand strong, all in one army. They, the reserves,

62 CALVARY

hardly had time to fall back. ... Chartres was in
flames, the villages in the vicinity were burning, the
farms were destroyed. The greater part of the French
detachments which bore the brunt of covering the
retreat, could not hold out much longer. The fugi-
tives were questioned; they were asked whether they
saw the Prussians, what insignia they wore and were
particularly quizzed about all the details of the enemy
uniforms.

Every fifteen minutes new reserves would show up
in groups of two or three, pale, exhausted with fatigue.
Most of them had no kits, some had no guns, and
they were telling stories, each more terrible than the
other. None of them was wounded. It was decided to
quarter them in the church, to the great indignation
of the curé who, lifting his arms to heaven, exclaimed:

“Holy Virgin! ... In my church! .., Ah! Ah!
Soldiers in my church!...”

Up to this time the general who was preoccupied
solely with his plans of destruction, had no time to
provide for the guarding of the camp, except by es-.
tablishing a small outpost in a tavern, frequented by
carterers within a mile from Belhomert upon the
Chartres road. This outpost, commanded by a ser-
geant, had not received any definite instructions, and
the man did nothing except loaf, drink and sleep. Still
the sentinel who was nonchalantly pacing to and fro
in front of the tavern, gun on shoulder, at one time
arrested a country doctor as a German spy because
of his blond beard and blue spectacles. As for the
sergeant, an old professional poacher who sneered at
everything and everybody, he amused himself by set-
ting traps for rabbits in the hedges nearby.

The arrival of the reserves, the menace of the Prus-
sians had thrown us into confusion. Messengers came
up every minute, carrying sealed envelopes containing

CALVARY 63

orders and counter-orders. The officers were running
about with a preoccupied look, not knowing what to
do, and completely lost their heads. Three times we
were ordered to break up camp and three times we
were told to pitch our tents anew. All night trumpets
and bugles were sounding, and big log fires were burn-
ing, around which, in the growing tumult, were
passing back and forth shadows strangely agitated,
silhouettes of demoniacal appearances. Patrols were
scouring the fields, riding out on the crossroads,
searching the outskirts of the forest. Artillery sta-
tioned on this side of the town was ordered to move
up forward upon the heights, but it ran into the barri-
cade. To clear the way for the cannons, it was found
necessary to demolish it piece-meal and to fill up the
ditch.

At daybreak my company was sent to do main
guard duty. We met mobilized soldiers, dispirited
franc-tireurs who were dragging their feet piteously.
A little further away, the general, accompanied by
his staff, was watching the manceuvres of the artillery.
He held a map of the general staff, unfolded on the
neck of his horse, and was vainly trying to locate the
Saussaie mill. Bending over the map which the horse
shifted out of place with every movement of its head,
he shouted:

“Where is that damned mill? ... Pontgouin....
Couville. ... Courville.... Do they think I know
all their damned mills around here?”

The general commanded us to halt and asked:

“Ts there anyone here who is familiar with this
country?... Is there anyone here who knows where
the Saussaie mill is?”

Nobody answered.

“No?... Well alright. To hell with it!”

64 CALVARY

And he threw the map to his aide who began fold-
ing it up carefully. We resumed our march.

The company was stationed on a farm and I was
put on guard duty near the road, at the entrance to a
grove, beyond which I could look on an open plain,
immense and smooth like the sea. Here and there
small woods emerged from the ocean of land like isl-
ands; the belfries of the villages, the farms, blurred
by the fog, assumed the aspect of a distant veil. In
this enormous expanse a great silence reigned, a soli-
tude wherein the least noise, the least thing stirring in
the skies, had something mysterious about it which
put anguish into one’s heart. Up above, black dots
spotted the skies — those were the ravens; down be-
low, upon the earth, small black specks moved for-
ward, growing larger, disappearing — those were the
fleeing soldiers of the reserves; and now and then
the distant barking of dogs, answered by similar bark-
ing all along the line from east to west, from north
to south, sounded like the plaint of the deserted fields.
Our guard was supposed to be relieved every four
hours, but hours upon hours passed, slow and endless,
and no one came to take my place.

No doubt they had forgotten all about me. With a
heavy heart I was searching the horizon on the Prus-
sian side, the French side; I saw nothing, nothing but
this hard, relentless line, which encircled the huge
grey sky around me. It was a long time since the
ravens had ceased flying and the reserve soldiers flee-
ing. For a moment I saw a truck coming toward the
woods where I was, but it turned off on one of the
roads and soon was no longer distinguishable from
the grey terrain.... Why did they leave me thus?
...1 was hungry and I was cold, my bowels rumbled,
my fingers became numb. I ventured out on the road
a little; having walked a few steps I shouted.... Not

CALVARY 65

a being answered my call, not a thing stirred.... I
was alone, utterly alone, alone in this deserted, empty
field. ... A shudder passed through my frame, and
tears came into my eyes.... I shouted again.... No
answer.... Then I went back into the woods and sat
down at the foot of an oak tree, with my rifle across
my lap, keeping a sharp lookout and waiting. ... Alas!
The day was waning little by little, the sky grew yel-
low, then purple by degrees and finally vanished in
deadly silence. And night, moonless and starless, fell
upon the fields, and at the same time a chilling fog
arose from the shadows.

Worn out with fatigue, always occupied with some-
thing or other and never alone, I had no time to reflect
on anything from the moment we started out. But
still confronted by the strange and cruel sights con-
stantly before my eyes, I felt within me the awakening
of the idea of human life which until now had lain
slumbering in the sluggishness of my childhood and
the torpor of my youth. Yes... the idea awoke con-
fusedly, as if emerging from a long and painful night-
mare. And reality appeared to me more frightful than
the nightmare. Transposing the instincts, the desires
and passions which agitated us from the small group
of errant men that we were to society as a whole, re-
calling the impressions so fleeting and wholly external
which I had received in Paris, the rude crowds, the
pushing and jostling of pedestrians, I understood that
the law of the world was strife; an inexorable, mur-
derous law, which was not content with arming nation
against nation but which hurled against one another
the children of the same race, the same family, the
same womb. I found none of the lofty abstractions
of honor, justice, charity, patriotism of which our
standard books are so full, on which we are brought
up, with which we are lulled to sleep, through which

66 CALVARY

they hypnotize us in order the better to deceive the
kind little folk, to enslave them the more easily, to
butcher them the more foully.

What was this country, in whose name so many
crimes were being committed, which had torn us —
formerly so full of love—from the motherly bosom
of nature, which had thrown us, now so full of hatred,
famished and naked, upon this cruel land? . . . What
was this country, personified to us by this rabid and
pillaging general who gave vent to his madness on
old people and trees, and by this surgeon who kicked
the sick with his feet and maltreated poor old mothers
bereaved of their sons? ... What was this country
every step on whose soil was marked by a grave,
which had but to look at the tranquil waters of its
streams to change them into blood, which was always
frittering away its man power, digging here and there
deep charnel vaults where the best children of men
were rotting? . . . And I was astounded, when for the
first time it dawned upon me that only those were the
most glorious, the most acclaimed heroes of mankind
who had pillaged the most, killed the most, burned the
most.

They condemn to death the stealthy murderer who
kills the passerby with a knife, on the corner of the
street at night, and they throw his beheaded body
into a grave of infamy. But the conqueror who has
burned cities and decimated human beings, all the
folly and human cowardice unite in raising to the
throne of the most marvelous; in his honor triumphal
arches are built, giddy columns of bronze are erected,
and in the cathedrals multitudes reverently kneel be-
fore his tomb of hallowed marble guarded by saints
and angels under the delighted gaze of God! ... With
what remorse did I repent of the fact that until now
I had remained blind and deaf to this life so full of

CALVARY 67

inexplicable riddles! Never had I opposed this mys-
terious book, never had I stopped even for a single
moment to consider the question marks which are
represented by things and beings; I did not know
anything. And now, suddenly, a desire to know, a
yearning to wrest from life some of its enigmas tor-
mented me; I wanted to know the human reason for
creeds which stupefy, for governments which oppress,
for society which kills; I longed to be through with
this war so that I might consecrate myself to some
ardent cause, to some magnificent and absurd apostle-
ship.

My thought traveled toward impossible philosophies
of love, toward utopias of undying brotherhood.... I
saw all men bent down beneath some crushing heels;
they all resembled the little soldier of the reserves at
Saint-Michel, whose eyes were running, who was
coughing and spitting blood, and as I knew nothing
of the necessity of higher laws of nature, a feeling of
compassion rose within me, clogging my throat with
suppressed sobs. I have noticed that a man has no-
real compassion for anyone except when he himself is
unhappy. Was this not, after all, but a form of self-
pity? And if on this cold night, close to the enemy
who would perhaps come out of the fogs of the mor-
row, I loved humanity so much — was it not myself
only that I loved, myself only that I wanted to save
from suffering? These regrets of the past, these plans
for the future, this sudden passion for study, this
ardor which I employed in picturing myself in the
future in my room on the Rue Oudinot, in the midst of
books and papers, my eyes burning with the fever of
work — was this not after all only a means to ward
off the perils of the present, to dispel other horrible
visions, visions of death which, blurred and blunted,

68 CALVARY

incessantly followed one another in the terror of
darkness?

Night, impenetrable night continued. Under the
sky which brooded over them, sinister and greedy,
the fields stretched like a vast sea of Shadow. At long
intervals, out of the dead whiteness, long curtains of
fog were floating up above, grazing the invisible
ground where clumps of trees here and there appeared
still darker in the surrounding darkness. I never
stirred from the place where I sat down, and the cold
numbed my members and chapped my lips. With
difficulty I raised myself and walked on the outskirt
of the woods. The sound of my own steps on the
ground frightened me, it always seemed to me that
someone was walking behind me. I was walking
carefully, on tiptoe, as if afraid to wake the sleeping
earth, and listened, trying to penetrate the darkness,
for in spite of everything, I had not yet given up the
hope that some one would come to relieve me. Nota
stir, not a breath, not a glimmer of light in this blind
and mute night. Twice, however, I distinctly heard
the sound of steps, and my heart thumped violently.
... But the noise moved away, grew fainter by de-
grees, ceased altogether and silence set in again, more
oppressive, more terrible, more disheartening than
ever.

A branch brushed against my face; I recoiled,
seized with terror. Further away, a rise in the ground
appeared to me like a man who with crooked back
seemed to be crawling toward me; I loaded my rifle.
...At the sight of an abandoned plough with its arms
turned upward toward the sky, like the menacing
horns of some monster, my breath left me and I al-
most fell on my back.... I was afraid of the shadow,
of the silence, of the least object that extended beyond
the line of the horizon and which my deranged imag-

CALVARY 69

ination endowed with a soul of sinister life.... De-
spite the cold, perspiration in large drops was stream-
ing upon my face.... I had a notion to quit my post,
to return to camp, persuading myself by all sorts of
ingenious and cowardly arguments that my comrades
had forgotten all about me and that they would be
glad to see me back with them. Obviously, since I
had not been relieved by anyone from my company,
and saw none of the officers make his round of inspec-
tion, they must have left.... But supposing I were
mistaken about it, what excuse could I offer, and how
would I be received at the camp?... To go back to
the farm where my company was quartered this morn-
ing and ask for instructions?... I was thinking of
doing it.... But in my plight I had lost all sense of
direction, and if I attempted to do that I would surely
get lost in this plain that was so endless and so black.

Then an abominable thought flashed through my
mind.... Yes, why not discharge a bullet into my
arm and run back, bleeding and wounded, and tell
them that I had been attacked by the Prussians?... I
had to make a strong effort to regain my reason which
was leaving me; I had to gather all the moral forces
that were left in me in order to get away from this
cowardly and odious impulse, from this wretched ecs-
tasy of fear, and I desperately strove to recall the
memories of former times, to conjure up gentle and
silent visions, sweet-scented and white-winged. .. .
They came to me as in a painful dream, distorted,
mutilated, under the spell of hallucination, and fear
immediately threw them into confusion.... The Vir-
gin of Saint-Michel, with a body of pink, in a blue
mantle, adorned with golden stars, I saw in a lewd
attitude, prostituting herself on a bed, in some miser-
able shack, with drunken soldiers. My favorite spots
in the Tourouvre forest, so peaceful, where I used to

70 CALVARY

stay for entire days, stretched out on the mossy
ground, were turning topsy-turvy, tangled up, brand-
ishing their gigantic trees over me; then a few how-
itzer shells crossed one another in the air, resembling
familiar faces which sniggered ; one of these projectiles
suddenly spread out wide wings, flame-colored, which
swung around me and enveloped me.... I cried out.
... My God, am I going crazy? I felt my breast, my
chest, my back, my legs.... I must have been as pale
as a corpse, and I felt a shiver passing through me
from heart to brain, like a steel bore. ...

“Let’s see now,” I said aloud to myself to make
sure that I was awake, that I was alive.... In two
gulps I swallowed the remainder of the whiskey in my
flask, and I started to walk very fast, tramping with
rage upon the clods under my feet, whistling the air
of a soldier song which we used to sing in chorus to
relieve the tedium of the march. Somewhat calmed,
I came back to the oak tree and kicked its trunk with
the sole of my boots; for I was in need of this noise
and this physical motion.... And now I thought of
my father so lonely at the Priory. It was more than
three weeks since I had received a letter from him.
Oh! How sad and heart-rending his last letter was!

It did not complain of anything, but one felt in
it a deep despair, a wearisomeness of being alone in
that large empty house, and anxiety about me who,
he knew, was wandering, knapsack on back, amidst
the dangers of battle.... Poor father! He had not
been happy with my mother— who was ill, always
fretful, who did not love him and could not stand his
presence.... And never a sign of reproach, not even
when meeting with the most painful rebuff and un-
kindness! ... He used to bend his back like a dog,
and walk out....

_ Ah! how I repented of the fact that I did not love

CALVARY 71

him enough. Perhaps he had not brought me up in
the manner he should have done. But what difference
did it make? He did everything he could!... He
was himself without experience in life, defenseless
against evil, of a kindly but timid nature. And in the
measure that the features of my father stood out
clearly before me even to their smallest details, the
face of my mother was obliterating itself, and I was
no longer able to recall its endearing outline. At this
moment all the affection that I had for my mother I
transferred to my father. I recalled with tenderness
how on the day my mother died he took me on his
lap and said, “ Perhaps it’s for the best.” And now I
understood how much sorrow accumulated in the past
and terror in facing the future there was summed up
in that phrase. It was for her sake that he said that,
and also for the sake of one who resembled my mother
so much, and not for his own consolation, unhappy
man that he was, who had resigned himself to suffer-
ing all.... During the last three years he had aged
very much; his tall frame was worn out, his. face,
formerly so red with the color of health, grew yellow
and wrinkled, his hair became almost white. He no
longer lay in wait for the birds in the park, he let the
cats rove among the lianas and lick the water from
the basin; he took little interest in his practice, the
direction of which he left to his chief clerk, a trusted
man who was stealing from him; he no longer occu-
pied himself with the small but honorable affairs of
his locality. He never went out, he would not even
stir from his rocking-chair with small pillows which
he ordered moved into the kitchen, not wishing to
stay alone— without Marie who would bring him
his cane and his hat.

“ Well, Monsieur, you must take a little walk. You
are getting all ‘rusty’ in your corner there,...”

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“ All right, Marie. I am going to take the air....
I’ll walk along the bank of the river, if you want me
tp.”

“No, Monsieur, you must take a walk in the woods.
... The air there will do you good.”

“ All right, Marie, I am going to take a walk in the
woods.”

At times, seeing him inactive, slumbering, she would
tap him on the shoulder:

“Why don’t you get your rifle, Monsieur? There
are a lot of finches in the park.”

And looking at her with an air of reproach, my
father would mutter:

“ Finches?... The poor things!...”

Why did my father not write to me? Did my let-
ters reach him at all? I reproached myself with hav-
ing been too dry in my letters until now, and I prom-
ised myself to write to him the next day — the first
opportunity I got — a long affectionate letter, in which
I was going to pour out my heart to him.

The sky was gradually clearing way yonder on the
horizon whose outline stood out clear against a darker
blue. It was still night, the fields remained dark, but
one could feel the approaching dawn. The cold was
more piercing than ever, the earth cracked harder
under the feet, moisture crystallized into drops on the
branches of the trees. And little by little the sky
was brightened by a faint glimmer of pale-gold color
which was growing in distinctness. Gradually, out-
lines emerged from the shadow, indefinite and con-
fused as yet, the opaque blackness of the plain
changed into a dull violet, here and there rent by
light. ... Suddenly I heard a noise, weak at first,
like the distant roll of a drum. ... I listened, my
heart beating violently. Presently the noise stopped
and the cocks crowed. ... About ten minutes later

CALVARY 73

the noise started again, more distinct, coming nearer!
... Pa-ta-ra! Pa-ta-ra! It was the gallop of a horse
on the Chartres road.... Instinctively I buckled up
my knapsack on my back and made sure that my rifle
was loaded. ... I was very excited, the veins in my
temples dilated.... Pa-ta-ra! Pa-ta-ra!...

Hardly had I time enough to squat down behind
the oak tree, when on the road, at a distance of twenty
paces in front of me, there suddenly appeared a large
shadow, surprisingly immobile, like an equestrian
statue of bronze, and this enormous shadow which
obtruded itself almost entirely upon the brightness of
the eastern sky was terrible to behold.... The man
appeared to me superhuman, inordinately large against
the sky! ... He wore the flat cap of the Prussians, a
long black cloak, under which the chest was bulging
out greatly. Was he an officer or a plain soldier? I
did not know, for I could not distinguish any insignia
of rank on the dark uniform. ... His features, at first
indistinct, became more accentuated. He had clear
eyes, very limpid, a broad beard, his bearing bespoke
youthful strength; his face breathed power and kind-
ness along with something noble, audacious and sad
which struck me. Holding his hand flat on his thigh,
he studied the country before him, and his horse
scraped the ground with its hoofs and puffed long
streams of vapor in the air through its quivering nos-
trils. . . . Evidently this Prussian was reconnoitering,
he came to observe our position, the nature of the
ground; undoubtedly a whole army was swarming
behind him, waiting for a signal from this man to
throw themselves on the plain! ...

Well hidden in my woods, with rifle ready, I was
watching him. ... He was handsome indeed, life
flowed abundantly in this robust body. ... Whata
pity! He kept on studying the country, and it seemed

74 CALVARY

to me as though he were studying it more like a poet
than a soldier. ... I detected a sort of emotion in
his eyes. ... Perhaps he forgot why he had come
here and allowed himself to be fascinated by the
beauty of this virginal and triumphant dawn. The
sky became all red, it blazed up gloriously, the awak-
ened fields unrolled themselves in the distance, emerg-
ing one after another from their veil of mist, rose-
colored and blue, which floated like long scarves ruf-
fled by invisible hands. The trees were dripping dew,
the hovels separated themselves from the pink and
blue background, the dove-cot of a large farm whose
new tile roofs began to glitter, projected its whitish
cone into the purple glare of the east.... Yes, this
Prussian who started out with the notion to kill, was
arrested, dazzled and reverently stirred by the splen-
dor of a new-born day, and his soul for a few minutes
was the captive of love.

“Perhaps it’s a poet,” I said to myself, “an artist;
he must be kind, since he is capable of tenderness.”

And upon his face I could see all the emotion of a
brave man which agitated him, all the tremors, all the
delicate and flitting reactions of his heart, moved and
fascinated.... I feared him no longer. On the con-
trary, a sort of infatuation drew me towards him, and
I had to hold on to the tree to keep myself from going
to this man. I would have liked to speak to him, to
tell him that it was well that he contemplated the
heaven thus, and that I liked him because of his re-
ceptiveness to beauty.... But his face grew sombre,
a sadness stole into his eyes.... Ah, the horizon over
which they swept was so far, so far away! And be-
yond that horizon there was another and further on,
still another! One had to conquer all that!... When
was he to be relieved of his duty ever to spur his horse
on through this nostalgic territory, always to cut a

CALVARY 75

way through ruins and through death, always to kill,
always to be cursed!...

And then, undoubtedly, he was thinking of the
things he had left behind; of his home resounding
with the laughter of his children, of his wife, who was
waiting for him and praying to God while doing so....
Will he ever see her again? ... I was sure that at
this very moment he was recalling the most fugitive
details, the most childish habits of his life at home...
a rose plucked one evening, after dinner, with which
he adorned the hair of his wife, the dress which she
wore when he was leaving, a blue bow on the hat of
his little daughter, a wooden horse, a tree, a river
view, a paper knife! ... All the memories of his joys
came back to him, and with that keenness of vision
which exiled persons possess, he encompassed in a
single mental glance of despondency all those things
by means of which he had been happy until now. ...

The sun rose higher, rendering the plain larger, ex-
tending the distant horizon still farther.... I felt a
compassion for this man and I loved him... yes I
swear I loved him! ... Well, then, how did that
happen? ... A detonation was suddenly heard, and
at that very moment I caught sight of a boot in
the air, of a torn piece of a military cloak, of a mane
flying about wildly on the road ... and then nothing,
I heard the noise of a blow with a sabre, the heavy
fall of a body, furious beats of a gallop ... then noth-
ing.... My rifle was warm, and smoke was coming
out of it.... I let it fall to the ground.... Was I
the victim of hallucination? ... Clearly not. Of the
large shadow which rose skyward at the middle of the
road like an equestrian statue of bronze there was
left but a small corpse all black, stretched out face
downward, with crossed arms. ... I recalled the
poor cat that my father had killed, when with fasci-

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nated eyes she had been following the flight of a
butterfly... .

Stupidly, unconsciously, I had killed a man whom
I loved, a man with whom my soul had just identified
itself, a man who in the dazzling splendor of the rising
sun was retracing the purest dreams of his life! ...
Perhaps I had killed him at the very moment that that
man had said to himself: “And when I shall see her
again at home... .” Why? For what reason? Since
I loved him, since, if soldiers had menaced him, I
would have defended him! Why of all men was it
he I assassinated? In two bounds I was beside this
man; I called him... he did not move. My bullet
had pierced his neck under the ear, and blood was
gushing from an opened vein with a gurgling sound,
collecting into a red pool and sticking to his beard. ...
With trembling hands I raised him slowly, his head
swung from side to side, fell back, inert and heavy... .
I felt his chest where the heart was: it beat no longer.
... Then I raised him again, supporting his head with
my knees, and suddenly I saw his eyes, his two clear
eyes which looked at me sadly, without hatred, with-
out reproach, his two eyes which seemed to be alive!
.. . I thought I was going to faint, but gathering all
my strength in a supreme effort, I clasped the dead
body of the Prussian, placed it right in front of me
and pressing my lips against this bleeding face from
which long, purple threads of congealed slaver were
hanging, I desperately kissed it!...

From this moment on I don’t remember anything.
... I see again smoky fields covered with snow, and
ruins burning incessantly, ever recurring dismal
flights, delirious marches during the night, confusion
at the crossroads congested with ammunition wagons,
where the dragoons with drawn swords were driving
their horses right into our midst and trying to cut a

CALVARY 77

way through the wagons; I see again funeral carriages,
followed by dead bodies of young men which we buried
in the frozen ground, saying to ourselves that tomorrow
would be our turn; I see again, near the cannon car-
riages, large carcasses of horses dismembered by how-
itzer shells, stiff, cut up, over which we used to quar-
rel in the evening, from which we used to carry away,
into our tents, bleeding portions which we devoured
growling, showing our teeth like wolves!... And I
see again the surgeon, with sleeves of his white coat
rolled up, pipe in mouth, amputating on a table, in a
farmhouse, by the smoky light of a tallow candle, the
foot of a little soldier still wearing his coarse shoes!

. But above all I see again the Priory, when worn
out and broken in body and spirit by these sufferings,
rendered apathetic by the disaster of defeat I re-en-
tered it one nice and sunny day.... The windows of
the large house were closed, the window blinds were
down in every room.... Felix, more bent than ever,
was cleaning the walk and Marie, seated near the.
kitchen door, was knitting a pair of stockings, wag-
ging her head.

“Well! Well!” I shouted, “is that the way you
receive me!”

As soon as the two noticed me, Felix went away as
if frightened and Marie growing pale, uttered a cry.

““What’s the matter?” I asked with a heavy heart.
“ How about father? ”

The old woman looked at me fixedly.

“Why, don’t you know?... Haven’t you received
anything?... Ah, my poor Monsieur Jean! My poor
Monsieur Jean!”

And with eyes filled with tears,. she stretched out
her arms in the direction of the cemetery.

“Yes! Yes! There is where he is now, with Ma-
dame,” she said in a dull voice.

CHAPTER III

OC, toc, toc.
And at the same time a small drawn otter
skin bonnet appeared in the slight opening of

the door, followed by two smiling eyes under a veil,
then a long fur cape which outlined the slender body
of a young woman.

“Tam not disturbing you?... May I come in?”

Lirat, the painter, raised his head.

“ Ah! it’s you, Madame!” he said in a curt tone,
almost irritated, while shaking his hands soiled with
pastel. ‘“ Why, yes, certainly.... Come right in!”

He left his easel and offered a seat.

“ How is Charles?” he asked.

_ “He is all right, thank you.”

She sat down, smiling, and her smile was really
charming as well as sad. Although covered with a
veil, her clear eyes of pinkish blue, her very large eyes
which illuminated her whole figure, seemed to be ra-
diating infinite kindness. ... She was dressed very
elegantly, without striving to be pretentious. A little
over-perfumed, however. ... There was a moment
of silence.

The studio of the painter Lirat, situated in a peace-
ful section of the Faubourg Saint Honoré, on Rodri-
gues Square, was a vast, bare place with grey walls,
with rough carpentry work and without furniture.
Lirat called it familiarly “his hangar.” A hangar it
was, indeed, where the north winds blew and the rain
entered the room through the small crevices in the
roof. Two long tables of plain wood supported boxes
of paint, scrap books, blocks, handles of fans, Jap-

CALVARY 79

anese albums, casts, a mess of odd and useless things.
Near a book case filled with old magazines in a cor-
ner there was a pile of pasteboard, canvas, torn
sketches with the stretchers sticking through. A shat-
tered sofa creaking with a sound like that of a piano
out of tune, whenever one tried to sit on it, two-rickety
arm chairs, a looking glass without a frame — con-
stituted the only luxury of the studio illumined by
trembling sunlight. In the winter, on days when Lirat
had a model posing for him in the studio, he used to
light his little cast iron stove whose chimney, crooked
into several large bends, supported by iron wire and
covered with rust, rose in a serpentine fashion in
the middle of the room, before losing itself in the roof
through an opening, all too large. On other days,
even during the coldest nights, he substituted for the
heat of the stove an old coat of astracan fur, worn out,
bald and scabby, which he put on with real pleasure.

Lirat took a childish pride in this dilapidated studio, ©
and he boasted of its bareness as other painters do of
their embroidered plush and tapestries, invariably his-
torical in origin. Nay, he even wanted it to be still
less attractive, he wanted its floor to be the bare
ground. “It is in my studio that I learn who my
best friends are,” he would often say, “they always
come again, the others stay away. That’s very con-
venient.” Very few came more than once.

The young woman was attractively seated in her
chair, her bust slightly bent forward, her hands bu-
ried in her muff; from time to time she would take
out an embroidered handkerchief and bring it slowly
to her mouth which I could not see because of the
thick border of the veil which hid it, but which I
surmised was very beautiful, very red and exquisitely
shaped. In her whole figure, elegant and refined,
about which, in spite of the smile which rendered it so

80 CALVARY

alluring, there was an air of modesty and even haugh-
tiness, I could distinguish only these beautiful eyes
which rested on objects like the rays of some heavenly
star, and I followed her gaze which passed from the ©
floor to the frame work, so vibrant with luminosity
and caresses. The embarrassing silence continued.
I thought I alone was the cause of this embarrassment
and I was getting ready to leave, when Lirat ex-
claimed :

“Ah! Pardon!... I have forgotten.... Dear
Madame, allow me to introduce to you my friend Jean
Mintié.”

She greeted me with a gracious and at the same
time coaxing nod of her head and in a very sweet
voice, which thrilled me deliciously, she said:

“Tam delighted to meet you, Monsieur, but I know
you well.”

While very much flushed, I was stammering out a
few confused and silly words, Lirat broke in mock-
ingly:

“T hope you are not going to make him believe
that you have read his book?”

“T beg your pardon, Monsieur Lirat.... I have
read it.... It is very good.”

“Yes, like my studio and my painting, isn’t that
right?”

“Oh, no! what a comparison!”

She said it frankly, with a laugh, which rolled
through the room like the chirping of a bird.

I did not like this laughter. Although it had a hard,
sonorous quality, it nevertheless rang false. It seemed
to me out of harmony with the expression of her face,
so delicately sad, and then, in my admiration for
Lirat’s genius it hurt me almost like an insult. I do
not know why, but it would have been more pleasing
to me if she had expressed her admiration for this

CALVARY 81

great unrecognized artist, if she had shown at this
moment a loftier judgment, if she had evinced a sen-
timent superior to those of other women. On the
other hand the contemptuous manner of Lirat, his
tone of bitter hostility, shocked me deeply! I had a
grudge against him for this affected rudeness, for this
attitude of boyish insolence which lowered him in my
esteem, I thought. I was displeased and very much
embarrassed. I tried to speak of indifferent things,
but not a single object of conversation came to my
mind.

The young woman got up. She walked a few steps
in the studio, stopped before the sketches lying in a
heap, examined one or two of them with an air of
disgust.

““My God! Monsieur Lirat,” she said, “ why do you
persist in painting such ugly women, so comically
shaped?”

“Tf I should tell you,” Lirat replied, “ you would
not understand it.” |

“Thanks! ... And when will you paint my por-
trait?”

“You should ask Monsieur Jacket or, better still,
a photographer about that.”

“Monsieur Lirat?”

“ Madame!”

“Do you know why I came?”

“To oblige me with your kindness, I suppose.”

“That’s in the first place!... And then?”

“We seem to be playing an innocent little game?
That’s very nice.”

“To ask you to come to dine with me on Friday?
Do you care to?”

“You are very kind, dear Madame, but on Friday
that is just when it will be utterly impossible. That’s
my day at the Institute.”

82 CALVARY

“ Well, of all things! ... Charles will be hurt by
your refusal.”

“ You will express my regrets to him, will you not?”

“Well, good bye, Monsieur Lirat! A person can
freeze to death here.”

And walking over to me, she gave me her hand.

“ Monsieur Mintié. I am home every day, from
five to seven!... I shall be delighted to see you...
delighted... .”

I bowed and thanked her, and she went out leav-
ing in my ears some of the music of her voice, in my
eyes some of the kindliness of her look and in the
studio the strong perfume of her hair, of her cape, of
her muff, of her small handkerchief.

Lirat resumed his work without saying a word; I
was turning over the pages of a book which I was
not reading at all, and upon the moving pages there
was flitting incessantly back and forth the image of
the young visitor. I certainly was not asking myself
what kind of an impression I had retained of her, nor
whether I had retained any impression at all; but
although she went out, she was not gone entirely.
There was left with me an indefinite something of this
short-lived apparition, something like a haze which
assumed her form in which I could make out the
shape of her head, the turn of the back of her neck,
the movement of her shoulders, the graceful curve of
her waistline, and that something haunted me.... I
still beheld her in that chair which she had just left,
unfathomable and more charming than ever, with her
tender and luminous smile which radiated from her
and created a halo of love about her:

“ Who is that woman?” I suddenly asked, in a tone
which I forced myself to render indifferent.

“What woman?” said Lirat.

“Why, the one that has just left.”

CALVARY 83

“Ah! Yes... my God! A woman just like others.”

“JT should think so.... This does not tell me her
name, however, nor who she is.”

Lirat was rummaging in his paint box. He an-
swered carelessly:

“And so you want to know the name of that wom-

an.... Strange curiosity! ... Her name is Juliette
Roux.... As for biographical information, the police
can furnish you all you want, I imagine.... I pre-

sume that Juliette Roux gets up late, that she has her
fortune told by cards, that she is deceiving and ruin-
ing as well as she can that poor Charles Malterre, an
excellent chap whom you met here sometime ago, and
whose mistress she is, for the time being.... Lastly,
she is like other women, only with this difference,
which makes her case worse: she is more beautiful
than most of them and consequently more foolish and
more malicious. ... That sofa there, that you are
sitting on ... it was Charles who broke it by lying
and crying on it for entire days, while telling me his
troubles, you understand? One day he caught her
with a croupier of a gambling club, on another day
with a buffoon at the Bouffes theatre.

“There was also an affair with the wrestler of
Neuilly, to whom she gave twenty francs and Charles’
old trousers. As you see, it’s full of idylls.... I like
Malterre very much. . . because he is good-natured
and his lack of sense evokes my pity.... He really
has my sympathy.... But what can one say to such
men, to whom love is the greatest thing in life and
who can’t see a woman’s back without tacking on to it
wings of dreams and sending it flying to the stars... .
Nothing, isn’t that true? ... So much so that the
unfortunate fellow, in the midst of his rage and sobs,
could brag about the fact that Juliette had received a
good education. He used to take pride in the fact

84 CALVARY

that she came from the womb of a physician’s wife
and not from that of the wife of a janitor, and he
would show me her letters, emphasizing the correct
spelling and the elegant turn of phrases!... He
seemed to say: ‘How I suffer, but how well written
this is!’. . . What a pity!”

“Ah! You, too, love the woman!” I exclaimed,
when he finished his tirade.

And foolishly, I added:

“They say you have suffered much.”

Lirat shrugged his shoulders and smiled:

“ You talk like Delauney, of the Comédie-Frangaise.
No, no, my kind friend, I have not suffered; I have
seen others suffer, and that was enough for me... do
you understand?”

Suddenly his voice became shrill, an almost cruel
light shone in his eyes. He resumed:

“Ordinary people, poor devils like Charles Mal-
terre, when stepped upon, are crushed, they disappear
in the blood, in the mire, in the atrocious filth stirred
up by woman’s hands. .. that’s unfortunate of course.
.. . Humanity, however, does not claim them back;

for nothing has been stolen from it.... But artists,
men of our calibre with big hearts and big brains,—
when these are lost, strangled, killed! ... You un-
derstand?...”

His hand trembled, he crushed his crayon on the
canvas.

“T have known three of them, three wonderful, di-
vine ones; two died by hanging themselves; the third
one, my teacher, is in a padded dark room at Bicétre!
... Of this pure genius there has been left only a lump
of wan flesh, a sort of raving beast who grimaces and
hurls himself at you with froth at his mouth!... And
in this crowd of cast-offs, how many young hopes have
perished in the grasp of the beast of prey! Count

CALVARY 85

them up, all these lamentable, bewildered, maimed
people; those who had wings and who are now crawl-
ing on all fours; those who scrape the earth with their
nails and feed on their own excrements! Why, you

yourself ...a minute ago looked at Juliette with ecs-
tasy ... you were ready to do anything for a kiss from
her.... Don’t deny it, 1 saw you.... Oh! well, let’s

go out; that’s enough, I can’t work any more.”

He arose and paced across the studio in agitation.
Gesticulating and angry, he upset the chairs and paste-
boards, ripped some of his sketches with a kick. I
thought he was going mad. His bloodshot eyes rolled
wildly ; he was pale, and the words were coming out
of his drawn-up mouth in a violent jumble.

“For men to be born of woman... men!... How
irrational! For men to be conceived in an impure
womb!... For men to gorge themselves with wom-

an’s vices, with her imbecile, ferocious appetites, to
have sucked the sap of life from her nefarious breasts!
Mother!... Ah! yes, mother!... Divinized mother,
eh? Mother who creates us, sick and wasted race that
we are, who stifles the man in the child and hurls us
nailless and toothless, stupid and tamed, upon the
bedstead of a mistress and the nuptial bed!...”

Lirat stopped for a moment; he was choking. Then,
bringing his hands together and knotting his crisp
fingers in the air, as if gripping an imaginary neck, he
shouted madly, terribly:

“This is what should be done with them, all of
them, all of them!... Do you understand?...eh...
tell me?... Allofthem!...”

And he began pacing back and forth again, swear-
ing, stamping his feet. But the last shout of anger
had evidently relieved him.

“Come now, my dear Lirat, calm yourself,” I said

86 CALVARY

to him. ‘“ What’s the use of getting excited, and over
what, I ask you? Come now, you are not a woman.”

“That’s true, too, but you provoked me with this
Juliette.... How does this Juliette concern you any-
way?”

“Was it not natural on my part to want to know
the name of the person to whom you had introduced
me?... And then, frankly, pending the invention of
some other machine than woman for breeding chil-
dren. 23.”

“ Pending that ... I ama brute,” interrupted Lirat,
who again seated himself before his easel, a little
ashamed of himself, and in a quiet voice asked:

“ Dear little Mintié, would you mind sitting for me
a little. That won’t bore you, will it? For only ten
minutes.”

Joseph Lirat was forty-two years old. I made his
acquaintance casually one evening; I no longer re-
member where it was, and though he had the reputa-
tion of being a misanthrope, unsociable and spiteful,
I instantly took a fancy to him. Is it not painful to
think that our deepest friendships, which ought to be
the result of a long process of selection, that the gravest
events in our life which should be brought about by
a logical chain of causes, are for the most part, the
instant result of chance? ... You are at home in your
study, tranquilly absorbed in a book. Outside the sky
is grey, the air is cold: it is raining, the wind is blow-
ing, the street is gloomy and dirty, therefore you have
every good reason in the world not to stir from your

chair. ... Yet you go out, driven by weariness, by
idleness, by something you yourself don’t know—by
nothing, .. . and then at the end of a hundred steps,

you meet the man, the woman, the carriage, the stone,
the orange peel, the mud puddle which upsets your
whole existence from top to bottom.

CALVARY 87

In the midst of the most sorrowful of my experi-
ences I used to think of these things, and often I would
say to myself—with what bitter regrets!—“If on the
evening when I met Lirat, in the forgotten place where
I certainly had nothing to do, I had but stayed at
home and worked or dreamed or slept, I would have
been today the happiest man on earth and there would
have happened to me none of the things which did
happen to me.” And that moment of trivial hesitancy,
the moment when I was asking myself: “Shall I go
out or shall I not?,” that moment embraced the most
important act in my life; my whole destiny was de-
termined in the brief space of time which in my memory
left no more trace than a gust of wind, which blows
down a house or uproots an oak tree, leaves upon the
skies! I recall the most insignificant details of my
life. For example, I remember the blue velvet suit,
laced in front, which I wore on Sunday, when I was
very little. I can swear, yes I can swear, that I could |
count the grease spots on the habit of curé Blanche-
tiére or even the number of tobacco grains he used
to drop while snuffing up his pinch of snuff.

It seems a senseless and yet disquieting thing: very
often when I cry, or look at the sea or even watch the
sunset upon an enchanted field—I can still see by that
odious freak of irony which is at the bottom of our
ideals, our dreams and our sufferings—lI can still see
upon the nose of an old guard we had, father Lejars,
a big tumor, grumous and funny with its four hair
filaments which proved an excellent attraction for
flies. ... Whereas the moment which decided my life,
which cost me my peace, my honor, and reduced me
to the position of a scabby dog; this moment which
I passionately wish to reconstruct, to bring back again
to memory with the aid of physical reminders and
mental associations—this moment I cannot recall.

88 CALVARY

Thus it is that in the course of my life there happened
a tremendous, a singular event, since all the subse-
quent occurrences flow from it, and yet the recollec-
tion of it escapes me entirely!... I remember neither
the occasion, nor the place, nor the circumstances, nor
the immediate cause of that event. ... What do I
know then about myself? . . . What do people in gen-
eral know about themselves, when they are hopelessly
unable to trace the sources of their actions? Nothing,
nothing, nothing! And must one explain the enigmas
which our mental phenomena and the manifestation
of our so-called will represent, by the promptings of
this blind mysterious force, the fatality of human na-
ture?... That is not speaking to the point, however.

I said that I had met Lirat one evening by accident,
in a place I don’t remember and that instantly I took
a fancy to him.... He was the most original of men.
... With his forbidding appearance, his machine-like
and magisterial stiffness and his air of a petty official,
he at first made the impression of a typical functionary,
of some orleanist puppet such as are manufactured in
the politicians’ clubs and drawing rooms for the punch
and judy show of parliaments and academies. From
a distance, he positively looked like one who is in the
habit of distributing decorations, excize offices and
prizes for valor! This impression, however, quickly
disappeared ; for this it was sufficient to listen, if only
for five minutes, to his conversation, lucid, colorful,
bristling with original ideas, and above all to feel the
power of his glance, his extraordinary glance, exhila-
rated and cold at the same time, a glance to which all
things seemed familiar, which went through you like
a gimlet against your will.

I liked him very much, only in my liking for him
there was lacking the element of tenderness, of kindli-
ness; I liked him with a sort of fear and uneasiness,

CALVARY 89

with a painful feeling that in his presence I did not
amount to much and that I was eclipsed, so to speak,
by the grandeur of his genius.... I liked him as one
likes the sea, the tempest, as one likes some immense
force of nature. Lirat inspired me with fear, his pres-
ence paralyzed what little intellectual powers there
were in me, for I was always afraid that I might say
something foolish at which he would jeer. He was
so severe, so relentless to everybody; he knew so well
how to discover, to reveal the ridiculous side in artists,
in writers whom I considered superior to myself, and
to characterize them by some apt remark unforget-
able and fierce, that in his presence I found myself in
a state of constant mistrust, of ever present dis-
quietude. I always asked myself: “‘ What does he think
of me? What scornful thoughts do I inspire in him?”

I had that feminine curiosity which obsessed me to
know what opinion he had of me. By means of dis-
tant allusions, absurd affections or hypocritical cir-
cumlocutions, I would sometimes try to surprise or
provoke him into frankness, and I suffered even more
when he deigned to pay me a curt compliment, as one
who throws a few pennies to a pauper whom one
wishes to be rid of; at least, that is what I imagined.
In a word, I liked him very much, I assure you; I was
very much devoted to him, but in this affection and in
this devotion there was an element of uncertainty,
which destroyed the charm of those feelings; there
was also a certain grudge which rendered those feel-
ings almost painful, a grudge caused by the sense of
my inferiority. Never, not even when I was most inti-
mate with him, was I able to conquer that feeling of
base and timid pride, never could I enjoy a friendship
which I prized very highly. Lirat, on the other hand,
was simple in his relations with me, often affectionate,
sometimes “fatherly ” in his attentions, and of all his

90 CALVARY

friends, who were very few in number, I was the only
one whose companionship he sought.

Like all those who hold tradition in contempt, like
all who rebel against the prejudices of conventional
education, against the idiotic formule of the School,
Lirat was very much discussed; spoken of with con-
tempt—JI should rather say. It must be stated also
that his conception of free and lofty art conflicted with
all the professed conventions and accepted ideas, and
that by their forceful synthesis and prodigious know-
ledge of life which obscured his craftsmanship, his
works of art disconcerted the lovers of prettiness and
grace and of the frigid correctness of academic unity.
The return of modern painting to the great gothic art
— this they could never forgive him.

He fashioned the man of today in his craving for
enjoyment, a frightfully tortured soul with a body
sapped by neurosis, with flesh tormented by lust,
which quivers under the influence of passion that lures
man on and sinks its claws into his skin. In his rep-
resentations of the human body wrought in avenging
postures, with monstrous apophyses guessed at under
the garments, there was such human emphasis, such
grief over infernal voluptuousness, such tragic power,
that a shudder passed through one’s frame when look-
ing at them. It was no longer curly headed, pomaded
love, adorned with ribbons and fainting with yearning,
rose in mouth, by the light of the moon, or strumming
on a guitar under the balcony; it was Love besmirched
with blood, drunk with the filth of vice, Love with
its onanistic furies, wretched Love which fastens upon
man its mouth like a cupping glass and drains his
veins, sucks the marrow of his bones and emaciates his
frame. And in order to give these representations a
still greater intensity of horror, to weigh them down
with the burden of even greater affliction, he cast them

CALVARY 91

in the midst of peaceful, smiling surroundings of sur-
passing clearness, among pink and blue landscapes
with softened vistas, amidst glorious sunshine, with
the radiant sea in the background. All around them
nature was resplendent with all the magic of her deli-
cate and changing colors.

When for the first time he consented to place his
works on a free exhibit, together with a group of
friends, the critics and the mob, which influences the
critics, shouted with indignation. But the anger did
not last very long — for there is a sort of nobility, or
generosity in anger—and they merely contented them-
selves with laughing. Then the humbug which is al-
ways represented by mediocre opinion with its foul
spittle, this humbug came to replace the menace ot
raised fists. And viewing the superb artistry of Lirat,
they were convulsed with laughter, holding their sides
with both hands. Clever, merry-making people depos-
ited pennies on the edge of the frames as one does for
a Jack-in-the-box, and this was considered excellent
sport —for it actually became a sport for people of
the better sort, with purses.

In the magazines, in the studios, in the salons, in
the clubs and the cafés the name of Lirat served as a
term of comparison, as an indispensable standard
whenever one wanted to designate something devoid
of sense or some sort of obscenity; it even seemed as if
women —and girls too—could not pronounce that
reprobate name without blushing. The year-end re-
views dragged it into their revolting lampoons, people
sang it at the cabarets. Then from these “ centres of
Parisian culture” it spread to the street — where one
saw it blossom forth again into a vulgar bud, upon
the sloppy lips of drivers, in the shriveled mouths of
street boys, “It’s a go, eh! Lirat!” For a few years
poor Lirat really enjoyed an uproarious popularity. . .

92 + CALVARY

But one gets tired of everything, even of abusing a
person. Paris abandons its puppets which it raises to
the throne as quickly as it does its martyrs whom it
hoists on the gibbet; in its perpetual hunger for new
playthings, it never gets itself excited overly much be-
fore the statues of its heroes or at the sight of the
blood of its victims.

Now there was only silence for Lirat’s portion. It
was very seldom indeed that in some of the magazines
there was again heard an echo of the past, in the form
of some annoying anecdote. Besides, he decided not
to exhibit any more, saying:

“Leave me alone in peace!.. Is painting done to
_ be seen..tell me..painting..do you understand?...
One works for himself, for two or three living friends
and for others whom one has never known and who

are dead... Poe, Baudelaire, Dostoiewsky, Shake-
speare. . . . Shakespeare! . . do you understand? ...
And the rest?... The rest don’t amount to any-
thing. ”

Having reduced his needs to a minimum, he lived
on little with admirable and touching dignity. Pro-
vided he earned enough with which to buy his brushes,
paints, canyas, pay his models and his landlord, make
a studying trip each year, he did not wish for more.
Money did not tempt him at all, and I am sure that he
never sought success. But if success had come to
him, I am also sure that Lirat would not have resisted
the joy, so human, of relishing factitious delights.
Though he did not want to admit it, though he af-
fected to defy injustice gayly, he felt it more keenly
than anyone else, and at heart suffered from it cruelly.
He suffered from the present neglect shown to him
as much as he had suffered from the former insults.
Only once did a young critic publish an enthusiastic
and high-sounding article about him in a magazine.

CALVARY 93

The article was well-meant but full of banalities and
errors; one could see that its author was not suffi-
ciently familiar with art and that he did not under-
stand anything about the talent of the great artist.

“Have you read it?” Lirat shouted, “have you
read it, eh, tell me?... What idiots these critics are!
... If they keep on talking about me, they will finally
force me to paint in a cave, understand?... What do
they take me for anyway—a vulgarizer?... And then
what business is it of this fellow here—whether I
make paintings, boots or slippers? ... That’s my
private affair!”

Nevertheless he had put it away in a drawer as a
thing of great value, and several times I surprised him
reading it. It was very well for him to say with
supreme detachment, when we were inveighing
against the stupidity of the public: “ Well, what would
you want them to do?... Do you expect the people
to start a revolution because I paint my canvases
plainly?” But in reality this contempt for notoriety,
this apparent resignation concealed deep but secret
sentiment. Deep in his very sensitive and very gen-
erous soul there accumulated profound aversions,
which were vented with terrible and malignant fer-
vor on the whole world. If, on the one hand, his
talent had gained in strength and ruggedness on ac-
count of this, his. character, on the other hand, had
lost something of its inherent nobility, and his critical
spirit had been deprived of some of its penetrating
quality and brilliance.

He ended by giving himself over entirely to decry-
ing everybody and everything, the excess of which
threatened to render him odious; at times it bore
evidence of nothing but a childishness which made
him ridiculous. Great souls nearly always have petty
weaknesses — that is a mysterious law of nature, and

94 CALVARY

Lirat did not escape the effects of this law. Above
everything else, he held fast to his well-established
reputation of an ill-natured man. He bore very well
with the opinion which denied him talent, but what
he could not tolerate was that they called in question
the propriety of his insulting humanity with his sar-
castic jibes.

To avenge the scouring words with which he
characterized them, some of the enemies of Lirat attrib-
uted to him unnatural vices; others simply called him
an epileptic, and these coarse and cowardly calumnies,
strengthened every day by ingenious comments,
based on “certain” stories which made the rounds of
the studios — these calumnies found ready listeners
willing, some owing to his actual malice, others
prompted solely by the intemperance of the painter’s
tongue, to receive and spread them.

“You know Lirat?.... He had another attack
yesterday, this time on the street.”

And names of important personages were mentioned
who had assisted in the scene and who had seen him
rolling in the mud, lying, with foam at his mouth.

I must confess that I myself at the beginning of our
friendship was greatly troubled by these stories. I
could not think of Lirat without at the same time pic-
turing to myself horrible fits in which, I was told, he
was writhing. Victim of a delusion born of an obses-
sion with this idea, I seemed to discover in him symp-
toms of horrible diseases; I often imagined that he
suddenly became livid, that his mouth was distorted,
that his body was convulsed in horrible spasms, that
his eyes, wild and streaked with red, were shunning
the light and seeking the shadow of deep vacuous
space, like the eyes of trapped beasts that are about
to die. And I regretted that I did not see him fall,
shriek, writhe here in his studio filled with his genius,

CALVARY 95

under my avid glance that watched him and hoped
for the worst!... Poor Lirat!.. And still I loved
him!...

The day was drawing to a close. All over Rodri-
gues place one heard the slamming of doors; the
noise of steps upon the street was rapidly dying away,
and in the shops voices were heard rising in song at
the end of the day’s work. Lirat had not uttered a
word since resuming his work, except to fix my pos-
ture, which I did not keep just the way he wanted.

“ The leg a little this way!... A little more now!

. Your chest not quite so drawn in!.... You'll
excuse me, my dear Mintié, but you pose like a pig!”

He worked now feverishly, now haltingly, mum-
bling in his mustache, swearing from time to time. His
crayon snapped at the canvas with a sort of uneasy
haste of angry nervousness.

“Ah, shucks!” he cried out, pushing away the
easel with a kick.... I can do nothing but botch-
work today!.... The devil take me, one might think
I was competing for a prize.”

Moving back his chair he examined his sketch with
a frigid air and muttered:

“Whenever women come here it’s the same old

story..... When they go away the women leave you
the soul of a Boulanger in the pretty claws of a
Henner.... Henner, do you understand?.. Let’s go
out.”

When we were at the end of the street:

“Are you coming to dine with me, Lirat?” I
asked him.

“No,” he replied in a dry tone, reaching out his
hand.

And he walked away, stiff, formal, solemn, with the
business air of a deputy who has just discussed the
budget.

96 CALVARY

That evening I did not go out and remained at
home to muse in solitude. Stretched on a sofa, with
half-closed eyes, and body made torpid by the heat,
almost slumbering, I liked to go back to my past, to
bring to life things dead and to recall memories which
escaped me. Five years had passed since the war —
the war in which I began my apprenticeship in life by
entering the tormenting profession of a man-killer....
Five years already!... Still it seemed like yesterday
... the smoke, the fields covered with snow, stained
with blood and ruins, these fields where, like ghosts, we
wandered about piteously, worn out with fatigue....
Only five years!... And when I came back to the
Priory, the house was empty, my father dead!... My
letters had come to him only rarely, at long intervals
and they had always been short, dry, written in haste
on the back of my knapsack. Only once, after a night
of terrible anguish had I become tender, affectionate;
only once had I poured out my heart to him, and this
letter which should have brought him sweetness, hope
and consolation he had not received!... Every morn-
ing, Marie told me, he used to come out to the gate
an hour before the arrival of the mailman and watch
the turn of the road, a prey to mortal fear. Old wood
cutters would pass on their way to the woods; my
father used to question them:

“Hey there, uncle Ribot, you have not seen the
mailman, by any chance?”

“Why no, Monsieur Mintié — it’s a little early yet.”

“ Oh, no, uncle Ribot, he is rather late.”

“That might be, Monsieur Mintié, that might be.”

When he noticed the kepi and red collar of the mail-
man he became pale, trembling with the fear of bad
news. As the mailman approached, the heart of my
father beat furiously, almost bursting.

“Nothing but magazines today, Monsieur Mintié.”

CALVARY 97

“ How is that! ... No letters at all! You must be
mistaken, my boy. Look. . . look again. .. .”

He made the mailman search in his letter bag,
untie the bundles and go through them again....

“Nothing!... Why it’s impossible!

And he would return to the kitchen, seat himself in |
the rocking chair heaving a sigh:

“ Just think of it,” he would say to Marie who gave
him a bowl of milk, “just think of it, Marie, if his poor
mother had been alive!”

During the day, when in town, he used to visit peo-
ple who had sons in the army; the conversation was
always the same.

“Well, have you heard from your boys.”

“Why, no, M’sieur Mintié. .How about you, have
you heard anything from Jean?”

“T haven’t either.”

“That’s very strange. How is it possible?... Can
you explain it? ...”

That they themselves did not get any letters only
half surprised them, but that Mintié, the mayor, had
not received any either, surprised them very much.
Most unusual conjectures were made; they turned to
the confusing statements of the papers, they ques-
tioned old soldiers who told them their war experi-
ences with the most extravagant and lavish details;
at the end of a couple of hours, they would part with
lighter hearts.

“ Don’t worry M’sieur Mayor. You’ll see him back
a colonel, sure.’

“Colonel, colonel!” my father would say, shaking
his head. “IT don’t ask that much... Just so he
comes back! EP 4 :

One day—nobody knew how that happened—Saint-
Michel found itself full of Prussian soldiers. The
Priory was occupied. Long sabres were found in our

98 CALVARY

old house. From this moment, my father became
more ill than ever, he took fever and was confined to
his bed, and in his delirium he repeated without end:
“Put the horses to, Felix, put the horses to, for I
want to go to Alengon to get some news of Jean!”
He imagined himself starting out on the road. “ Gid
up, gid up, Bichette, gid up, come on!... We are
going to have some news of Jean this evening....
Gid up, gid up, come on!.. And my poor father
gently breathed his last in the arms of the curé
Blanchetiére, surrounded by Felix and Marie who
were sobbing!... After a six months’ stay at the
Priory, now sadder than ever, I was weary to death...
Old Marie, accustomed to manage the house according
to her own notions, was unbearable to me; in spite of
her devotion, her whims exasperated me, and there
always were long altercations in which I never had
the last word. For my only company I had the good
curé to whom nothing appealed as much as the pro-
fession of a notary. From morning till night he used
to lecture to me thus:

“Your grandfather was a notary, so was your
father, your uncles, your cousins, in fact your whole
family. ... You owe it to yourself, my dear child,
not to desert your post. You shall be Mayor of Saint-
Michel, you may even hope to replace your poor
father at the general council, in a few years.... Why
man alive, that’s something! And then—take my
word for it—times are going to be pretty hard for
decent people who love the good Lord.... You see
that rascal Lebecq, he is municipal counsellor. All he
thinks of is how to rob and kill people, that brigand
there.... We need at the head of our country a
right-minded man to uphold religion and defend the
principles of righteousness.... Paris, Paris!... Oh!
these silly heads, those youngsters!... But will you

CALVARY 99

please tell me what good you have accomplished at
Paris?... Why, the very air there is infected! Look
at big Mange, he comes from a good family, but that
did not prevent him from coming back from Paris with
a red cap on. Isn’t that a pretty affair?”

And he would continue in this vein for hours, tak-
ing his snuff, evoking the vision of the red cap of big
Mange which appeared to him more abominable than
the horns of the devil.

What was there to do at Saint-Michel? There was
no one to whom I could communicate my thoughts,
my dreams; there was no outlet for the ardor of life
where I could expend that intellectual energy, that
passion for knowledge and for creative work which the
war, in developing my muscles, in strengthening my
body, had awakened in me, and which omnivorous
reading overstimulated in me more and more every
day. I realized that Paris alone, which formerly had
frightened me so much, that Paris alone could furnish
nourishment for ambitions, as yet indefinite, which
spurred me on, and with the estate settled, and the
library sold I left suddenly, leaving the Priory to the
care of Felix and Marie.... And here f am back in
Paris!...

What have I accomplished during these five years,
to use the words of the curé?... Carried away by
vague ardors, by confused enthusiasm which blended
together some sort of a chimeric ideal with a kind of
impracticable apostleship, how far did I get?... I
am no longer the timid child whom the footmen, in the
vestibule flooded with light, used to put to flight. If
I have not acquired much self-assurance, I at least
know how to behave in society without appearing too
ridiculous. I pass pretty much unnoticed, a condition
which is the best that could be wished for a man of my

100 CALVARY

calibre who possesses none of the graces and qualities
which are necessary to shine there.

Very often I ask myself: what am I doing here in
this society to which I do not belong, where they
respect only success however fraudulently obtained,
only money, no matter from what filthy place it
comes; where every spoken word acts as a wound
inflicted on everything I love best and everything I
admire most? ... Besides, is not man with all his
differences of education which are betrayed only in
his gestures, in his manner of greeting, in his more or
less graceful bearing, pretty much the same no matter
where he is?... What! were these the high-spirited
artists, the much admired writers whose glory is
sung, whose genius is acclaimed... these petty, vulgar,
frightfully pedantic beings, slavishly aping the man-
ners of the society they rail at, ludicrously vain,
fiercely jealous, lying prostrate before weaith, and
kneeling in the dust, worshipping publicity — that old
blackguard, which they carry about on velvet cush-
ions. ... Oh, how much better I love the herdsmen
and their oxen, the pig drivers and their pigs, yes the
pigs, round and pink, digging the earth with their
snouts and whose fat smooth backs reflect the clouds
that float above!

I read excessively, without discrimination, without
system, and from this faulty reading there was left
in my mind nothing but a chaos of disjointed facts and
incomplete ideas, from the tangle of which I did not
know how to extricate myself.... I tried to acquire
knowledge in every way, but I realized that I was just
as ignorant today as I had been in the past.... I had
had mistresses whom I loved for a week, sentimental
and romantic blondes, fierce brunettes, impatient to
be caressed, and love showed me only the frightful
emptiness of the human heart, the deceptiveness of

CALVARY 101

affection, the lie of the ideal, the nothingness of
pleasure....

Believing myself converted to the formule of de-
scriptive art by means of which I was going to harness
my ambition and fix my shifting and thrilling dreams
upon the pinion of words, I had published a book
which was praised and which proved to be “a best
seller.” Of course, I was flattered by this little suc-
cess; I, too, spoke of myself with pride as of a rare
talent; I, too, gave myself superior airs in order to
deceive others all the better. And wishing to deceive
myself as well, I often looked upon myself in the
mirror with the complacency of a comedian, in order
that I might discover certain marks of genius in my
eyes, on my forehead, in the majestic bearing of my
head.

Alas! Success rendered yet more painful the inner
knowledge of my impotence. My book did not amount
to much; its style was forced, its conception infantile:
a passionate harangue, an absurd phraseology took
the place of ideas in it. At times I would read over
the passages praised by the. critics, and in those
passages discover something of everybody: Herbert
Spencer and Scribe, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Com-
merson, Victor Hugo, Poe and Eugene Chavette. Of
my own contribution, I, whose name was displayed
on the title page, on the yellow cover of the volume,
found nothing. Following the caprices of my memo-
ries, aroused by the intermittent light of my recollec-
tions, I expressed the thoughts of one and used the
style of another; none of the ideas or style belonged
to me. And important looking persons whose tastes
are infallible and whose judgment is law praised my
personality, my originality, the unexpected nature and
subtleness of my impressions!...

How sad it was!... Whither was I going? I knew

102 CALVARY

no more about it today than I did yesterday. I had
the conviction that I could not be a writer, because all
the effort of which I was capable had been spent in
writing that miserable and incoherent book. Had I
had a more humble and compromising ambition,
were I only prompted by desires less noble, by those
which never cause remorse — such as love of money,

official titles, dissoluteness!... But, no! Only one
thing which I could never attain lured me, and that
was talent... To be able to say to myself, yes... to

say to myself: “This book, this sonnet, this phrase
is yours, you wrung it from your brains swollen with
passion; it is your thought that quivers here; it is
pieces of your flesh and drops of your blood, that it
scatters over the sorrowful pages; it is your nerves
that vibrate in it like the strings of a violin under the
bow of a divine musician. What you have accom-
plished here is beautiful and grand!” For this moment
of supreme joy I would be willing to sacrifice my
future, my wealth, my life; I would be willing even
to kill!...

And never, never will I be able to say that to my-
self!... Ah how I envied the eternal self-content-
ment of the mediocre!... Now I again felt a passion-
ate desire to return to Saint-Michel. I wished I
could drive the plough in the brown furrow, roll in the
fields of yellow clover, smell the wholesome odor of the
stables, and, above all, lose myself in the thick of the
coppice wood, penetrating into it farther and
farther. ...

The light went out and my lamp was smoking. A
cold like a gentle caress filled my legs and sent
a current of pleasurable chills through my back. Out-
side not a sound was heard; the street grew silent.
It had been long since I heard the dull trundle of the
omnibus rolling on the causeway. The clock struck

CALVARY 103

six. But a sort of laziness kept me glued to my sofa:
while thus stretched out I felt a physical pleasure
amidst a great mental depression. I had to make a
strenuous effort to free myself from this languor and
to go into my bedroom. I found it impossible to fall
asleep. No sooner did I close my eyes than it seemed
to me that I had been thrown into a black and very
deep pit, and suddenly I awoke, panting and perspir-
ing. I again lit my lamp, tried to read.... I could
not concentrate my mind on the lines of the text which
seemed to swerve, to cross one another, to abandon
themselves to a fantastic dance under my very eyes.
What a stupid life mine is!... Why am I so dif-
ferent, preyed upon by obnoxious chimeras? Who
has poured into my soul this deadly poison of weari-
ness and discouragement? Before others there stretches
a vast horizon illumined by the sun! But I am walk-
ing in the darkness, stopped on every side by walls
which obstruct my way and against which I vainly
beat my head and knees... . Perhaps it is because they
possess love! Love, ah yes! If I could only love!
And again I saw the beautiful virgin of Saint-Mi-
chel, the radiant virgin of plaster of paris with its
robe adorned with stars and its golden nimbus de-
scending from heaven. All around her suns were re-
volving, inclining themselves like celestial flowers, and
doves in the exaltation of prayers were flying about,
brushing her with their wings.... I recalled the
ecstasies, the fits of mystic adoration which she evoked
in me; all the sweet joys which I had experienced
came back to me at the mere contemplation of her.
Did she not also speak to me, then, at the chapel?
And those unuttered words which poured into my
childish soul such ineffable tenderness, this language
more harmonious than angels’ voices and the music
of golden harps, this language more fragrant than the

104 CALVARY

perfume of roses,— was it not the divine language of
love?

As I listened with all my senses to this language
which was music to me, I was lifted into a world un-
known and wondrous; a new enchanted life sprouted,
burst into bud and flourished all around me. The
horizon receded into mysterious infinity: space shone
bright like the interior of the sun, and I felt myself
growing so tall and strong that in one embrace I
was pressing to my breast all the beings, all the
flowers, all the swarms of creatures born of the glance
of love exchanged between the Holy Virgin of plaster
and a little child.

“Holy Virgin, kindly Virgin!” I cried. “ Speak to
me, speak to me again,— as you used to in the past,
in the chapel.... And give me love once more, for
love is life and I am dying because I am no longer
able to love.”

But the Virgin was not listening to me any longer.
She glided into the chamber and curtsying, mounted
the chairs, pried into the furniture pieces, singing
strange airs all the time. A drawn bonnet of otter
skin now replaced her nimbus of gold, her eyes became
like those of Juliette Roux, very large, very sweet,
which smiled at me from a plaster face under a veil
of very fine gauze. From time to time she approached
my bed, waving above me her embroidered handker-
chief which exhaled a violent perfume.

“ Monsieur Mintié,” she said, “I am at home every
day from five to seven. And I shall be delighted to
see you, delighted!”

“Virgin, kindly Virgin!” I implored again. “ Speak
to me, please. Speak to me as you did formerly in the
chapel.”

“Tu, tu, tu, tu!” hummed the Virgin who, causing
her lilac robe to swell out and removing her cloak,

CALVARY 105

adorned with golden stars with the tips of her long,
thin fingers, began to turn around slowly as if dancing
a waltz, her head swaying from one side to the other.

“Good Virgin!” I repeated in a rather irritated
voice, “ why don’t you speak to me!”

She stopped, posted herself in front of me, stripped
off her plaster garments one after another, and entirely
nude, lustful and magnificent, her bosom shook with
clear, sonorous, precipitous laughter:

“ Monsieur Mintié,” she said, “I am at home every
day from five to seven. And I’ll give you Charles’ old
trousers.” And she threw her otter skin bonnet at me.

I sat up on my bed.... With a stupid gaze and
breathing with difficulty, I looked about me. But the
room was quiet, the lamp continued to burn sadly and
my open book was lying on the carpet.

The next morning I got up late, having slept badly,
pursued by the thought of Juliette in my sleep dis-
turbed by nightmares. During the remainder of that
troubled, feverish night she did not leave me for an
instant, assuming the most extravagant forms,
abandoning herself to the most wretched pranks, and
lo! I again beheld her in the morning, and this time
she was the same as when I met her before at Lirat’s,
with her air of modesty, her discreet and charming
manners.

I felt a kind of sadness — not exactly sadness, but
regret, the regret one feels at the sight of a rose-bush
whose roses have wilted and whose petals are scat-
tered over the muddy ground. For I could not think
of Juliette without thinking at the same time of Lirat’s
malignant words: “ There was also an affair with a
wrestler of Neuilly whom she gave twenty francs.”
What a pity! ... When she entered the studio I
could swear that she was the most virtuous of
women.... Her very manner of walking, greeting,

106 CALVARY

smiling, seating herself bespoke good breeding, a
peaceful, happy life without hasty acts of indiscretion,
without degrading remorse. Her hat, her cloak, her
dress, her whole appearance) was of a refined and
charming elegance, meant for the enjoyment of just
one, for the cheerfulness of a secluded house, closed
to the seekers of unclean spoils.... And her eyes,
radiating a perfectly legitimate tenderness, her eyes
from which shone such candor, so much sincerity,
which seemed to have no knowledge of lies, her eyes
more beautiful than the lakes haunted by the moon!...

“Is Charles all right?” Lirat had asked.

Charles? ... Her husband, to be sure! ... And
naively I pictured to myself a respectable interior of
a room, with jolly children playing on the carpet, a
family lamp, grouping kind and simple beings around
its gentle shimmer; a chaste bed, protected by a cru-
cifix and a hallowed branch of boxtree!... Then sud-
denly, crashing into this peace, the bullhead
from the Bouffes, the croupier of the gambling club,
and Charles Malterre who broke Lirat’s lounge by
rolling on it, while crying in rage! ... I conjured
the image of the comedian —a pallid face, wrinkled,
glabrous, with impudent bloodshot eyes, with sensual
lips, wearing an open collar, a pink cravat, a low-
plaited short jacket!

I was unnerved and irritated.... What did it
matter to me, after all? Did the life of this woman
concern me, was it related to me in any way?...
Was it my business to interest myself in the fate of
women whom chance threw in my path? ... I don’t
care what she is, this Mlle. Juliette Roux! ... She is
neither my sister nor my fiancée, nor my friend; there
is not a single bond of kinship between us. ... If I
had seen her yesterday walking on the street, like one
of the thousands of persons whom one brushes against

CALVARY 107

every day and who pass on and vanish, she would
have already been drawn into the vortex of oblivion
and never again would I be likely to see her.

“Maybe Lirat is mistaken?” I repeated, while
breakfasting. I knew his exaggerations, his passion
for ridicule, his horror of and contempt for woman.
What he said of Juliette he was saying of all other
women. Who knows,— perhaps this comedian, this
croupier, all the details of this ignominious affair in
the exposure of which his spiteful spirit found grati-
fication, existed only in his imagination? And Charles
Malterre?

Undoubtedly I should have preferred to see her
married. I should have been pleased to see her lean-
ing openly on the arm of a man, respected, envied by
the most honest! But she loved this Malterre, she
lived decently with him, she was devoted to him:
“ Charles will be sorry to learn of your refusal.” The
almost entreating voice in which she said those words
was still in my ears. This means that she was mind-
ful of the things that might or might not please Mal-
terre.

And at the thought that Lirat, in making improper
use of a false situation, was calumniating her in an
odious manner, my heart grew heavy, a feeling of
great pity swept over me and I caught myself saying
aloud: “Poor girl!” Still this Malterre had been
writhing on the lounge, he had cried, he had laid bare
his heart to Lirat, had shown him her letters. Well,
what of it? What have I to do with this woman?
Let her have all the singers, all the croupiers, all the
wrestlers she wants! To hell with her! And I went
out humming a gay air, with the free bearing of a
gentleman whose spirit is not in the least troubled by
anything. And why should it be, I ask you?...

I went down the boulevards, stopping in front of

108 CALVARY

the booths, strolling in spite of the sun, which was
like a niggardly and pallid smile of December still
permeated with fog; the air was cold and piercing.
On the sidewalk women were passing, shivering with
cold, wrapped in long cloaks of otter skin, some of
them dressed in small drawn bonnets of fur like Juli-
ette’s, and every time these cloaks and bonnets at-
tracted my attention I observed them with genuine
pleasure. I liked to follow them with my glance until
they were lost in the crowd. At the corner of the Rue
Taitbout, I remember, I came upon a tall slender
woman, pretty and resembling Juliette so closely that
I brought my hand to my hat ready to greet her. I
was excited —oh, it was not the violent beating of
the heart which halts your breathing, weakens the
flow of blood in your veins and stuns you; it was a
light touch, a caress, something very sweet, which
brings a smile upon the lips and a cheerful surprise to
the eyes.

But this woman was not Juliette. I felt somewhat
peeved and avenged myself by thinking her very ugly.
Two o’clock already! ... Shall I go to see Lirat?
Why? To make him talk about Juliette, to compel
him to admit that he had lied to me, to make him tell
me of her traits of character, sublime and poignant,
tell me some touching stories of her devotion, sacrifice
— that tempted me. I thought the matter over, how-
ever, knowing that Lirat would be angry, that he
would mock at me, at her, and I had a horror of his
sarcasms; I already heard sinister words, abominable
phrases coming out of a twisted corner of his mouth
with a hissing sound.

At the Champs-Elysées, I called a hackney-coach
and proceeded toward the Bois. Why dissemble?
There I hoped to meet Juliette. Yes, certainly I
hoped it, but at the same time I feared it. Not to see

CALVARY 109

her at all, I felt, would prove a disappointment to me.
On the other hand, were she in the habit of exhibiting
herself in this market place of gallantry regularly like
the other ladies, I should again feel hurt, and in the
end I did not know what it was that stirred me more:
the hope of seeing her or the fear of meeting her.

There were few people in the Bois. On the grand
lake drive, carriages were passing slowly at a consid-
erable distance from one another, the drivers perched
high upon their seats. Sometimes a brougham would
leave the strung-out line, turn and disappear to the
trot of its horses, carrying away God knows where the
profile of a woman, or some white and pallid faces, or
the end of a ruffled dress seen for a moment through
the window of the coach door. ... My heart and the
blood in my temples were beating faster, impatience
caused the tips of my fingers to twitch; my neck was
tired from turning in the same direction in an effort
to penetrate the shadow of the carriages and began to
hurt; anxiously I was chewing the end of a cigar
which I could not make up my mind to light, for fear
of missing her carriage in the act. Once I thought I
saw her inside a brougham, which was going in the
opposite direction.

“Turn, turn,” I shouted to the driver, “and follow
that brougham.”

I did not at all reflect whether or not I was acting
properly towards a woman to whom I had been intro-
duced only the day before, and casually at that, one
whose reputation I wanted to see rehabilitated at all
costs. Half leaning against the lowered window of
the coach door, I never lost sight of the brougham.
And I was saying to myself: “ Perhaps she recognized
me! Perhaps she is going to stop, get out of the car-
riage, appear in the street.” Indeed, I was saying this
to myself without the slightest notion of attempting

110 CALVARY

a gallant conquest. I was saying that as if it were
the simplest and most natural thing in the world. The
brougham rolled on speedily, lightly, bounding on its
springs, and my hackney coach followed it with diffi-
culty.

“ Faster!” I gave the order, “faster, and get ahead
of it!”

The driver lashed his horse, which started into a
gallop, and in a few seconds the wheels of the two car-
riages touched each other. Then a woman’s head,
with dishevelled hair under a very large hat, with a
nose comically turned up, with lips cracked from the
excessive use of paint and crimson like a living flesh
wound, appeared in the frame of the coach door. With
a scornful glance, she took in the driver, the cab, the
horse and myself, put out her tongue and then with-
drew into a corner of her carriage. It was not Juli-
ette! I did not come home until night, very much
disappointed and yet delighted with my useless drive!

I had no plans for the evening. Still I spent more
than the usual time in dressing myself. I did it with
the greatest care, and, for the first time, the knot of
my cravat seemed to me a matter of great importance,
and I was very much absorbed in the process of tying
it carefully. This unexpected discovery brought in its
train others equally important. For example, I no-
ticed that my shirt was ill cut, that the shirt front
wrinkled disgracefully at the opening of the vest; that
my dress coat looked very old and curiously out of
style. In a word, I thought I looked very ridiculous
and promised myself to change all that in the future.
Without making elegant appearance an exacting and
tyrannical law of my life, it was quite permissible, I
thought, to look like the rest of the people. Simply
because one dressed well, one was not necessarily a
fool.

CALVARY 111

These preoccupations consumed my time till the
dinner hour. Usually I ate at home, but this evening
my apartment appeared to me so small, so dismal; it
suffocated me, and I felt the need of space, of noise,
of merriment.

At the restaurant I took an interest in everything:
the coming and going of people, the gilding on the
ceiling, the large mirrors which multiplied to infinity
the parlors, waiters, electric globes, the flowers on
ladies hats, the counters on which were spread dressed
meats of all kinds, where pyramids of fruit, red and
gold colored, rose amid salads and sparkling glass-
ware. I watched the women above all, I studied their
somewhat airy manner of eating, the joy in their eyes,
the movement of their ungloved arms encircled by
heavy bracelets of glittering gold, the exposed lines
of their necks so delicate and tender, which gradually
receded into the bosom, under the roseate lace nap-
kin. This fascinated me, it affected me like something
altogether new, like a landscape of some distant coun-
try suddenly glimpsed. I was wonder-struck, like a
boy.

Ordinarily, impelled by the brooding disposition of
my nature, I would fasten my attention on the inti-
mate moral life of a human being, that is to say, I
would point out its ugliness or suffering; at this mo-
ment, on the contrary, I abandoned myself to the joy
of solely perceiving its physical charm: I was de-
lighted to observe the magic spell cast by the women;
even in the ugliest one I found some little detail such
as a curve in the back of a neck, a languor in eyes,
a suppleness of hands — always something or other —
which made me happy, and I reproached myself for
having until now arranged my life so badly, for having
isolated myself like a barbarian in a dark melancholy
chamber, for not having lived, while all this time Paris

112 CALVARY

was offering me, at every step, joys so easily attained
and so sweet to relish.

. “Ts Monsieur perhaps waiting for someone?” the
waiter asked me.

Some one? Why no, I was not waiting for anyone.
The door of the restaurant opened and I quickly
turned around. Then I understood why the waiter
had asked that question. Each time the door opened
I would hastily turn around as I did just now and
would stare anxiously at the people entering as if I
knew that someone was about to enter, someone I
was waiting for.... Some one! Well, for whom
could I be waiting?

I very seldom went to the theatre; to force me there,
a special occasion or obligation or inducement was
required. I quite believe that of my own accord I
would never think of going there. I even affected a
supreme contempt for the kind of literary stuff offered
for sale in these pushcart markets of mediocrity. Con-
ceiving, as I did, the theatre as a place not of idle
distraction but of serious art, it was repugnant to me
to see human passion warbling one and the same sen-
timental tune amidst the mechanism of always ident-
ical scenes, to see gaiety, bedecked with tinsel, tum-
bling into the same pit of tomfoolery. A manufac-
turer of such plays, be they ever so applauded, seemed
to me an artist gone astray; he bore the same relation
to the poet that an unfrocked clergyman bears to a
priest, or a deserter does to a soldier!

And I always remembered Lirat’s remark, so pow-
erfully concise, so profoundly discerning. We had
been attending the funeral of the painter M
The celebrated dramatist D was the chief
mourner. At the cemetery he delivered an address.
This did not surprise anyone, for did not H and
D enjoy a reputation of equal greatness? At

CALVARY 113

the end of the ceremony Lirat took my arm and we
walked back to Paris very sad. Lirat, who seemed
lost in painful meditation, was silent. Suddenly he
stopped, crossed his arms and, swaying his head with
an irresistibly comical air because it was intended to
be grave, exclaimed: “But why did that fellow
D interfere, tell me?” And he was right. Why
did he interfere, really? Did they come from the
same stock and were they headed for the same glory —
the one an ardent artist with grandiose thoughts and
immortal works, and the other, whose sole ideal was
to entertain with silly nonsense an assembly of
wealthy and reputable bourgeois each evening. Yes,
really, why did he interfere?

How removed I was from such morose sentiments
when, after dinner, having sauntered along the boule-
vards, enjoying the feeling of physical well-béing
which gave to my movement a special lightness and
elasticity, I seated myself in a chair at the Varieté,
where a successful musical comedy was being played!
With my face deliciously freshened by the cold air
outside, my heart entirely won over to a sort of uni-
versal forebearance, I was really enjoying myself.
With what? I did not know and little cared to know,
not being in the mood for psychological self-analysis.

As was proper, I arrived during the intermission,
when the crowd, very elegant in appearance, was fill-
ing the lobbies. After having left my overcoat at the
check room, I passed through the parterre boxes with
that same sweet impatience, that same delicious an-
guish, which I had already experienced at the Bois;
on reaching the first balcony I continued the same
careful inspection of the loges. “ Why is she not
here?” I asked myself. Each time I failed to dis-
tinguish clearly a woman’s face, whether it was be-
cause the face was slightly bent, in shadow, or cut

114 CALVARY

off from view by a fan, I would say to myself: “ That’s
Juliette!” And each time it was not Juliette at all.
The play amused me; I laughed heartily at the flat
jokes which constituted the essence of the piece: I
enjoyed all this perverse ineptitude, this vulgar coarse-
ness and really found in it a quality of irony which
did not lack literary merit. At the love scenes I grew
sentimental. During the last intermission I met a
young man whom I scarcely knew. Glad of the op-
portunity to pour out the banalities which had accu-
mulated in me and were pressing for an outlet, I
clung to him.

“An amazing thing, isn’t it?” he said to me. “It
is stunning, eh?”

“Yes, it isn’t bad!”

“Not bad! Not bad! ... Why that is a master-
piece, an astounding masterpiece! What I especially
like is the second act. There is a situation for you,
not that . . . a tense situation! Why it is high com-
edy, you know! And the gowns! And that Judic,
ah! that Judic! ...”

He struck his thigh and clicked his tongue:

“Tt got me all excited, my dear! It’s astonishing!”

We thus discussed the merits of the various acts,
scenes and actors.

When we were parting:

“Tell me,” I asked him, “do you happen to know
a certain Juliette Roux?”

“Wait now! Oh, perfectly well! A little brunette,
very ‘chic’? No, I got mixed up. Wait now! Juli-
ette Roux! Don’t know her.”

An hour later I was seated at a table with a glass of
soda water in front of me, in the café de la Paix where,
after the theatre, used to assemble the most beautiful
representatives of the fashionable world. A great many
women came in and out, insolent, loud-mouthed, their

CALVARY 115

faces covered with fresh layers of rice powder, their
lips newly painted with rouge! At the adjoining table
a little blond lady, already aged but very animated,
was speaking in a nasal voice; a brunette, farther
away, was simpering with a turkey’s ludicrous ma-
jesty, and with the same hand which had raked man-
ure on the farm she held a fan, while her escort, lean-
ing against his chair, his hat pushed back, his legs
spread apart, was obdurately sucking his cane’s head.

An uncontrollable feeling of disgust rose within me;
I was ashamed of being here, and I compared the
ridiculous and noisy manners of these women with
the reserved deportment of the gentle Juliette at Li-
rat’s studio. These raucous and piercing voices ren-
dered even more suave the freshness of her voice, the
voice which I still heard saying to me: “ Delighted,
Monsieur! But I know you well.” I arose.

“ What a scoundrel this Lirat is, all the same,” I
exclaimed while getting into bed, furious at the fact
that he had so treated a young woman whom I had
met neither on the street, at the Bois, in the restaurant,
at the theatre, nor at the night cabaret.

CHAPTER IV

" ADAME JULIETTE ROUX, if you please?”
“Will Monsieur please come in?” the

maid asked.

Without demanding my name or waiting for my
answer, she made me cross a small, dark antechamber,
and led me into a room where at first I could only
distinguish a lamp covered by a large lamp-shade,
which burned low in a corner. The maid raised the
flame of the lamp and carried out an otter skin cape
which had been thrown on the sofa.

“T will go tell madame,” she said.

And she disappeared, leaving me alone in the room.

So I was at her house! For eight days the thought
of this visit had tortured me. I had no special busi-
ness, I simply wanted to see Juliette; some kind of
keen curiosity, which I did not stop to analyze, drew
me to her. Several times I had gone to the Rue Saint
Petersbourg with the firm intention of calling on her,
but at the last moment my nerve failed me, and I left
without mustering sufficient courage to cross her
threshold. And now I was the most embarrassed be-
ing in the world, and I regretted my foolish step, for
obviously it was a foolish step. How would she re-
ceive me? What should I say? What caused me
the greatest uneasiness was that after I had made a
thorough search in my brain I found not a single
phrase, not a single word with which to begin our
conversation when Juliette entered. What if words
should fail me and I should be left standing here with
gaping mouth! How ridiculous that would be!

I examined the room into which Juliette was pres-

CALVARY 117

ently to come. It was a dressing room which also
served as a parlor. It made a rather unfavorable im-
pression on me. The toilet table, ostentatiously dis-
played with its two wash basins of cracked, pink cut
glass, shocked me. The walls and ceiling, hung with
loud red satin, the furniture, bordered with elaborate
plush hangings, the knick-knacks, costly and ugly,
placed here and there on the furniture, the queer
tables serving no apparent purpose, consols weighed
down with heavy ornaments —all this bespoke a vul-
gar taste. I noticed in the center of the mantlepiece,
between two massive vases of onyx, a terra-cotta
statuette of Cupid, smiling with a sort of grimace and
offering a flower held at the tips of his outspread fin-
gers. Every detail revealed, on the one hand, a love
of expensive and unrefined luxury, and on the other
a regrettable predilection for romance and puerile
affection. It was at once distressing and sentimental.
Nevertheless, and that was a relief to me, I saw here
no evidence of that incongruity, that transitory air,
that severity of aspect so characteristic off ladies’
boarding houses, those apartments where one is made
aware of a haggard existence, where by the number of
knick-knacks one can count the number of lovers who
have passed there, lovers for an hour, a night, a year;
where every chair tells of the lack of decency, the
unfaithfulness; where on the glass one can see the
tragedy of fortune’s fickleness; on the marble, traces
of a tear still warm; on the candlestick, blood drops
still moist. The door opened and Juliette appeared
wearing a white, long flowing dress. I trembled, color
came to my face; but she recognized me and, smiling
that smile of hers which at last I found again, she
stretched out her hand.

“Ah! Monsieur Mintié!” she said, “how nice of

118 CALVARY

you not to have forgotten me! Has it been long since
you saw that eccentric Lirat?”

“ Why, yes, Madame, I have not seen him since the
day I had the honor of meeting you at his place.”

“Ah, my God, I though you two never separated
at all.”

“Tt is true,” I replied, “that I see him quite often.
But I have been working all these days.”

As I thought I detected a note of irony in the sound
of her voice, I added, to provoke her:

“ What a great artist, isn’t he?”

Juliette let this remark pass unanswered.

“So you are always working?” She took up the
subject again. “‘ For the rest, I am told you live like
a regular recluse. Really, one sees very little of you,
Monsieur Mintié!”

The conversation took a quite ordinary turn, the
theatre furnishing food for nearly all of it. A remark
which I made seemed to astound her, and she was
rather scandalized.

“What, you don’t like the theatre? Is it possible
—and you an artist? I am passionately fond of it.
The theatre is so amusing! We are going to the
Varieté tonight, for the fourth time, mind you.”

A feeble yelp came from behind the door.

“Ah, my God!” Juliette exclaimed, hurriedly ris-
ing. “My Spy whom I left in my room! Shall I
present Spy to you, Monsieur Mintié? Don’t you
- know Spy?”

She opened the door, drew aside the hangings,
which were very wide.

“Come, Spy!” she said coaxingly. ‘“ Where have
you been, Spy? Come over here, poor thing!”

And I saw a diminutive little animal, with a pointed
snout, long ears, advancing, dancing on its thin paws
that resembled a spider’s legs and whose whole body,

CALVARY 119

bent and skinny, quivered as though in fever. A rib-
bon of red silk, carefully tied on the side, encircled its
neck in place of a collar.

“Come on, Spy. Say hello to Monsieur Mintié!”

Spy turned on me his round, stupid and cruel eyes
which were on a level with his head, and barked vi-
ciously.

“ That’s right, Spy. Now give your paw. Will you
give me your paw? Come, now!”

Juliette bent down and threatened the dog with her
finger. Spy finally put his paw in his mistress’ hand.
She picked him up, patted and embraced him.

“Oh! the dear little dog! Oh, darling dog! Oh,
my love, my dearest Spy!”

She sat up again, still holding the dog in her arms
like a child, rubbing her cheek against the snout of
the frightful beast, whispering caressing and endear-
ing words into his ears.

“ Now show us that you are pleased, Spy! Show
it to your little mammy!”

Spy barked again, then licked the lips of Juliette
who joyously abandoned herself to these odious ca-
resses.

“Ah, what a dear you are, Spy! Ah, how very,
very nice you are!”

And addressing herself to me, whom she seemed to
have forgotten completely since Spy’s unfortunate en-
try, she suddenly asked:

“Do you like dogs, Monsieur Mintié?”

“Very much, Madame,” I answered.

Then she told me, with a wealth of childish detail,
the history of Spy, his habits, his urgent needs, his
tricks, the scraps with the housekeeper who could not
stand him.

“ But you ought to see him when he is asleep,” she
said to me. “ You know he has a bed, sheets, an

120 CALVARY

eiderdown coverlet, like a real person. Every night I
put him to bed. And his little head looks so funny
on it, all black. Aren’t you very funny, Monsieur
Spy? ”? .

Spy chose a comfortable place on Juliette’s dress,
and, after turning several times, rolled himself into a
black lump, almost entirely lost in the cloth’s silken
folds. .

“That’s it! By-by, Spy, my little baby!”

During this long conversation with Spy, I had a
chance to observe Juliette at leisure. She was indeed
very beautiful, even more beautiful than I had dreamed
she was under her veil. Her face was truly radiant.
It had such freshness, such an aurora-like clearness,
that the very air about her seemed illumined. When-
ever she turned or bent forward I saw her thick hair,
very dark, descending along her dress in an enormous
tress, which added something peculiarly virginal and
youthful to her appearance. I thought I saw a per-
pendicular, wilful wrinkle furrowed in the middle of
her forehead, at the root of her hair, but it was visible
only in certain instances of light reflection, and the
luminous sweetness of her eyes, the extremely grace-
ful curve of her mouth tempered its rigid aspect. One
felt that under her ample garments quivered a supple,
nervous body of passionate pliancy; what delighted
me most were her hands, delicate, deft and of surpris-
ing agility, whose every movement, even of indiffer-
ence or anger, was a caress.

It was hard for me to form a definite opinion of her.
There was in this woman a mixture of innocence and
voluptuousness, of shrewdness and stupidity, of kind-
ness and malevolence, which was disconcerting. And
a curious thing! At one moment I saw the horrible
image of the singer at the Bouffes taking shape near
her. And this image formed Juliette’s shadow, so to

CALVARY 121

speak. Far from vanishing, this image, as I looked at
it, was assuming in some way a fixed corporeal form.
It grimaced, wriggled, leaped with lurid contortions,
its foul, obscene lips distended toward Juliette, who
seemed to draw the image toward herself and whose
hand sank in its hair and passed tremblingly along its
body, happy to sully herself with its impure con-
tact. And the sordid juggler was removing Juliette’s
clothes and showing her to me in a swoon, in the
‘wretched splendor of sin! I had to shut my eyes and
make a painful effort to dispel this abominable image,
and Juliette immediately assumed her expression of
enigmatic, candid tenderness.

“ And above all, come to see me, often, very often,”
she said, seeing me to the door, while Spy, who had
followed her into the antechamber, barked and
danced on his thin, spider legs.

Outside, I felt the return of a sudden and passionate
affection for Lirat and, reproaching myself for being
sulky with him, I resolved to ask him to dine with me
that very evening. On my way from the Rue Saint
Petersbourg to the Boulevard de Courcelles where
Lirat lived, I made some bitter reflections. The visit
had disillusioned me, I was no longer under the spell
of a dream and I quickly returned to desolate reality,
to the denial of love. What I had imagined about
Juliette was quite vague.

My spirit, exalted by her beauty, was ascribing to
her moral qualities and mental attainments which I
could not define and which I assumed were extraor-
dinary, the more so since Lirat, by attributing to her,
without reason, a dishonorable existence and shameful
proclivities, had made her a veritable martyr in my
eyes, and my heart was moved. Pushing this folly
still further, I thought that by some sort of irresistible
sympathy she would confide her suffering to me, the -

122 CALVARY

grave and sorrowful secrets of her soul; I already saw
myself consoling her, speaking to her of duty, virtue,
resignation. I looked forward to a series of solemn
and touching things.

Instead of all this poesy —a frightful dog who
barked at my feet and a woman just like others, with-
out brains, without ideas, occupied solely with pleas-
ures, confining her enthusiasm to the Théatre des
Varietés and the caressing of her Spy, her Spy!...
Ha! Ha! Ha!... Her Spy whom she loved with
the tenderness and devotion of a porter! And on my
way I kicked the air, at an imaginary Spy and, imi-
tating Juliette’s voice, was saying: “Come, dear!
Oh, dear little dog! Oh, my love, my dearest Spy!”
Shall I admit it, I also had a grudge against her for
not having said a word about my book. That no one
spoke about it in ordinary life was almost a matter
of indifference to me. But a compliment from her
would have delighted me! I would have felt so happy
to know that she had been moved by some page, pro-
voked by another, as I hoped she had been. And in-
stead — nothing! Not even an allusion! Yet, I re-
member, I had cleverly furnished her with an oppor-
tunity for such consideration.

“ Decidedly, she is a goose!” I said to myself as I
rapped at Lirat’s door.

Lirat received me with open arms.

“Ah! my little Mintié!” he exclaimed, “it’s very
nice of you to come to dine with me. And you have
come just in time, I tell you. We are going to have
cabbage soup.”

He rubbed his hands, and seemed very happy. He
wanted to help me remove my overcoat and hat and,
dragging me into the small room which served as his
parlor, he repeated:

CALVARY 123

“ My little Mintié, I am so glad to see you. Will
you come tomorrow to the studio?”

“ Surely.”

“ Well, you shall see! You shall see! First of all,
I am going to give up painting, do you understand?”

“Are you going into business?”

“Listen to me! Painting is humbug, my little
Mintié.”

He grew animated, moved about the room briskly,
waving his arms.

“Giotto! Mantegna! Velasques! Rembrandt!
Well, Rembrandt! Watteau! Delacroix! Ingres!
Yes and then who? No, that is not true? Painting
depicts nothing, expresses nothing, it’s all humbug!
It’s all right for the art critics, bankers, and generals
who have their portraits on horseback with a howitzer
shell exploding in the foreground. But to render a
glimpse of the sky, the shade of a flower, the ripple
of the water, the air,— you understand? The air —
all this impalpable and invisible nature, with a paste
of paint colors! With a paste of paint colors?”

Lirat shrugged his shoulders.

“With a paste of paint colors coming out of tubes,
with a paste of paint colors made by the dirty hands
of chemists, with a paste of paint colors, heavy, opaque
and which sticks to the fingers like jelly! Tell me...
painting ... what humbug! No, but you will ad-
mit, my little Mintié, that it is humbug! A drawing,
an engraving, a two-tone piece .. . that’s the thing!
That does not deceive, it’s honest .. . the amateurs
sneer at that kind of work and don’t presume to
bother you about it . . . it evokes no empty enthusi-
asm in their ‘salons’! But real art, majestic art, ar-
tistic art is there. Sculpture ... yes ... when it is
beautiful, it shakes you.... But next to it is the
art of drawing, drawing ... my little Mintié, with-

124 CALVARY

out Prussian blue, just plain drawing! Will you come
to my studio tomorrow?”

“ Certainly.”

He continued to chop his phrases, fumble his words,
excited by their very sound.

“Tam beginning a series of etchings. You'll see! A
nude woman, coming out of a deep shadow, carried
upward on the wings of a beast. Scattered about, in
unnatural positions, are parts of human corpses with
dirty folds and swellings of decaying flesh . . . a belly
cut open and losing its viscera, a belly of terrible out-
line, hideous and true! A dead head, but a living
dead head, you understand? Greedy, gluttonous, all
lips. She is rising in front of a crowd of old men in
tall hats, silk coats and white cravats. She is rising
and the old men bend toward her panting, with hang-
ing jaws, watering mouths, contracted eyes... all
have lewd faces!”

Stopping before me with an air of defiance, he con-
tinued :

“ And do you know what I am going to call it? Do
you know? I am going to call it Love, my little
Mintié. What do you think of it? .. .”

“That seems to me a little bit too symbolic,” I
ventured.

“Symbolic!” interrupted Lirat. “ You are talking
nonsense, my little Mintié! Symbolic! Why that’s
life itself! Let’s go out and eat.”

Our dinner was a very gay affair; Lirat displayed
a charming disposition; he was full of original ideas,
without extremes or paradoxes, on art. He had again
found his normal self, as in the better days of his life.
Several times I had a notion to tell him that I had
seen Juliette. A kind of shame held me back; I had
not the courage.

“Work, work, my little Mintié,” he said to me,

CALVARY 125

when we were parting. “To create, always to create,
to draw from one’s sinews or from one’s brains no
matter what .. . be it only a pair of rubbers. There
is nothing outside of that!”

Six days later I went again to Juliette and gradu-
ally I formed the habit of calling regularly and
spending an hour before dinner. The disagreeable
impression left on me at the time of my first visit had
vanished. Little by little, without suspecting it, I
grew so used to the red tapestry in her parlor, to the
terra cotta statue of Cupid, to Juliette’s childish
prating, even to Spy who had become my friend, that
whenever I passed a day without seeing her, it seemed
as though a great void had been created in my life.

Not only did the things which at first had shocked
me no longer do so, but, on the contrary, they now
moved me, and each time Juliette talked to Spy or
attended to him with exaggerated care, it was a posi-
tive pleasure to me, appearing as an added proof of
the simplicity and affectionate qualities of her heart.
In the end I, too, began to speak this dog language.
One evening, when Spy was sick, I grew uneasy and,
removing the covers and quilts which covered him, I
gently murmured: “ Baby Spy has a hurt; where does
it hurt our little baby?” Only the image of the
singer, rising near Juliette, somewhat disturbed the
tranquility of our meetings, but I only had to close
my eyes for a moment or turn away my head, and the
image would instantly disappear. I persuaded Juli-
ette to tell me her life. Until now she had always
refused.

“No! no!” she would say.

And she would add with a smile, looking at me with
her large, sad eyes:

“What will we gain, my friend?”

I insisted, I begged.

126 CALVARY

“Tt is your duty to reveal it to me and my duty to
know it.”

At last, conquered by this argument which I never
tired of using in various and appealing forms, she
consented. Oh, with what sadness!

Her home was in Liverdun. Her father was a phy-
sician and her mother, who led a frivolous life, had
left her husband. As for Juliette, she had been placed
in the home of the Sisters. Her father came home
drunk every evening, and there were terrible scenes,
for he was very ill-natured. The scandal grew to such
proportions that the Sisters sent Juliette away, not
wishing to keep the daughter of a wicked woman and
a drunkard in their house. Ah, what a miserable life
it was! Always locked up in her room and some-
times beaten by her father for no cause whatever!
One night, very late, the father entered Juliette’s
room. “How shall I express it to you!” Juliette
said blushing. “Oh, well, you understand... .” She
jumped out of bed, shouted, opened the window. But
the father was frightened and went away. The next
morning Juliette left for Nancy, planning to live by
working. It was here she had met Charles.

While she was talking in a gentle, even voice I
took her hand, her beautiful hand which I pressed
with feeling, at the sad points of the story. I was
indignant over the action of her father. And I cursed
the mother for abandoning her child. I felt the stir-
rings of a self-sacrificing devotion, and a vindictive
desire to avenge her wrongs. When she had finished
I wept with burning tears.... It was an exquisite
hour.

Juliette received very few people; some of Mal-
terre’s friends, and two or three of Malterre’s feminine
friends. One of them, Gabrielle Bernier, a tall, pretty

CALVARY 127

blond woman, always entered the house in the same
fashion.

“Good morning, Monsieur, good morning, dearie.
Don’t trouble yourself, I'll be gone in a minute.”

And she would sit down on the brace of the arm-
chair, smoothing her muff with a brusque motion of
her hand.

“Just think of it, I have just had another scene
with Robert. If you only knew what sort of a man
he is! He comes to my house and says whimpering:
‘ My dear little Gabrielle, I must leave you, my mother
told me so this morning, she won’t give me any more
money.’ ‘Your mother! I wish I had a chance to
answer her. Well, you can tell your mother in my
name, that whenever she is ready to give up her
lovers, I’ll quit you that very day. But in the mean-
time, she’ll have to dig into her pockets alright.’ And
I don’t believe it’s true either —a dirty trick like that!
I think it’s Robert who has cooked it up! We are
going to the Ambigu tonight. Are you going?”

“ Thank you.”

“Well, I must be off! Don’t trouble yourself.
Good day, Monsieur; good day, dearie.”

Gabrielle Bernier irritated me very much.

“Why do you receive such women?” I would say
to Juliette.

“ What harm is there, my friend? She amuses me.”

Malterre’s friends, on the other hand, spoke of races
and high life; they always had club and women stories
to tell and never tired of discussing theatrical matters.
It seemed to me that Juliette took an exaggerated
pleasure in these conversations, but I excused her,
ascribing it to excessive politeness. Jesselin, a very
rich young man, considered a serious fellow, was the
leader of the circle and all bowed before his evident
superiority. “ What will Jesselin say? We must ask

128 CALVARY

Jesselin. Jesselin did not advise that.”” He was very
much sought after. He had traveled widely and knew
better than anyone else the best hotels. Having been
in Afghanistan, he remembered one particular thing
of the entire trip through Central Asia, namely that
the Emir of Caboul, with whom he had had the honor of
playing chess one day, played as fast as the French.
“ Why that Emir certainly amazed me.” Quite ‘often
he would also offer this information: “ You know how
much I enjoy travel. Well, I can say this much. In
sleeping cars, in cabins, in a Russian telega, no matter
how or where I was, at half past seven every evening
I was in my dress suit!”

Malterre did not like me, friendly though he was.
Having a quiet, timid nature, he dared not show his
aversion for me, for fear of displeasing Juliette, but I
could see it flaring up in his smiling look which was
like that of a good-natured but frightened dog, and
in his handshake I felt it clamoring for an outlet.

I was happy only when alone with Juliette. There,
in the red parlor, under the zgis of the terra cotta
statuette of Cupid, we sometimes sat for hours, with-
out uttering a word. I would look at her, she would
droop her head, pensively playing with the trimming
of her dress or the lacework of her waist. Often my
eyes for some reason unknown, filled with tears, which
rolled down my cheeks like some perfume, flooding ,
my soul with its magic liquid. And my whole being
felt a sensation of satiety and delicious torpor.

“Ah! Juliette! Juliette!”

“Come, come my friend, be sensible.”

Those were the only words of love that escaped us.

Some time after this, Juliette gave a dinner to cele-
brate Charles’ birthday. During the whole evening
she appeared nervous and irritated. To Charles who
offered a timid remark, she replied harshly and curtly,

CALVARY 129

in a manner which seemed foreign to her. It was two
o’clock in the morning before the crowd left. I alone
remained in the parlor. Near the door, Malterre stood
with his back to me, talking to Jesselin who was put-
ting on his overcoat in the vestibule. And I saw Juli-
ette, her elbows resting on the piano, looking fixedly
at me. A gleam of fierce passion flashed in her eyes,
suddenly turned dark, almost terrible, marking them
as with a novel flame. The wrinkle on her forehead
deepened, her nostrils quivered; a strange expression
of something unchaste wandered on her lips. I leaped
toward her. My knees sought her own, my body
cleaved to hers, my mouth pressed against her own, I
clasped her in a furious embrace.

She abandoned herself to me entirely and in a very
low, choking voice:

“Come tomorrow!” she said.

CHAPTER V

wish I could stop here. ... Ah, how I wish I
could do that! At the thought that I am about
to disclose so much ignominy, my courage fails me, I
blush for shame, a feeling of cowardice instantly
seizes me and agitates the pen in my hand.... And
I sue for mercy from myself.... Alas! I must
clamber to the top of this ascending, sorrowful Gol-
gotha, even though my flesh be torn to bleeding
pieces, even though my living body be broken against
the rocks and stones! Sins like mine, which I am
not trying to justify by hereditary defects or by the
pernicious effects of an education so contrary to my
nature, call for terrible atonement, and the atonement
which I have chosen is a public confession of my life.
I say to myself that merciful and noble hearts will
think kindly of my self-imposed humiliation and I
also say to myself that my example will perhaps serve
as a lesson to others. ... Even if there were only
one young man who, on the verge of falling, should
happen to read these pages and feel so horrified and
so disgusted as to be forever saved from evil, it seems
to me that the salvation of his soul would signify the
beginning of the redemption of my own. And then
again, I hope, although I no longer believe in God, I
hope that in the depth of those sanctuaries of peace
where in the silence of soul-redeeming nights there
rises to heaven the sad and soothing chant of those
who pray for the dead, I hope that there, too, I may
be granted my share of compassion and of Christian
forgiveness.

I WISH I did not have to continue this story. I

CALVARY 131

I had an income of twenty-two thousand francs;
furthermore, I was certain that by doing literary work
I could earn an equal sum, at least. Nothing seemed
difficult to me, the path lay straight before me without
a single obstacle, I had but to march on.... My
shyness, my fears, my doubts, exhaustingly painful
efforts, spiritual agonies oh, those things no longer
mattered! A novel, two novels a year, a few plays
for the theatre... . What did that amount to for a
young man in love as I was? . . . Weren’t people talk-
ing about X....and Z.... two hopeless and no-
torious idiots who in a few years amassed a large for-
tune?. . . Ideas for a novel, a comedy, a dramatic play
came to me in droves. . . and I indicated their arrival
by a broad and haughty gesture. .

I saw myself already monopolizing all the libraries,
all the theatres, all the magazines, the attention of the
whole world.... In the hours when inspiration
should prove slow and painful, all I would need to do
would be to look at Juliette and masterpieces would
come forth from her eyes as in a fairy-tale. I did not
hesitate to demand Malterre’s departure and complete
charge of Juliette’s affairs. Malterre wrote heart-
rending letters, begged, threatened and finally de-
parted. Later on Jesselin, displaying his usual vaunted
tact, told us that Malterre, grief-stricken, had taken
a trip to Italy.

“I accompanied him as far as Marseilles,” he told
us. “ He wanted to kill himself and was crying all
the time. You know I am not a gullible sort of a
chap. . . but he actually made me feel sorry for him.
Now really!”

And he added:

“You know. He was ready to fight you.... It
was his friend, Monsieur Lirat, who kept him from

132 CALVARY

doing that. . . . I, too, dissuaded him from it because
I believe only in a duel to death.”

Juliette listened to all these details silently and with
apparent indifference. From time to time she drew
her tongue across her lips, and in her eyes there was
something resembling a reflection of inner joy. Was
she thinking of Malterre? Was she happy to learn
that someone was suffering on account of her? Alas!
I was no longer in a position to ask myself such ques-
tions.

A new life began.

I did not like the apartment where Juliette lived;
there were in her house neighbors whom I did not
like, and above all the apartment concealed memories
which I thought it more convenient to forget. For
fear that my plans might not be agreeable to Juliette
I did not dare to reveal them too abruptly, but at the
very first words I said about the matter she grew
enthusiastic.

“Yes! yes!” she cried out with joy. “I have been
thinking of it myself, dearie. And do you know of
what else I have been thinking? Guess, guess quickly,
what your little wifie has been thinking of?”

She placed both hands on my shoulders, and smiling:

“Don’t you know?... Really you don’t?...
Well! she has been thinking of having you come and
live with her.... Oh! It’ll be so nice to have a

pretty little apartment where we shall be alone, just
the two of us, to love each other, isn’t that right, my
Jean? ... You'll work and I'll sit right next to you
and do some needle work without making a stir, and
from time to time, I’ll embrace you to inspire you with
great ideas. ... You shall see, my dear, whether I
am a good housekeeper or not, whether I can take care
of all your little matters. ... In the first place, I’ll
arrange your things in the bureau. Every morning

CALVARY 133

you will find a fresh flower on it... . Then Spy will
also have a nice little niche, all new, with red top-
knots. . . And then we shall hardly go out at all...
And we'll sleep as late as we wish... . And then...
and then. ... Oh, how wonderful it will be!. . .”

Then getting serious again, she said in a grave voice:

“ Not to mention the fact that it will be a good deal
cheaper. Just about half!”

We rented an apartment on the Rue de Balzac and
we busily fixed it up. That was an important task.
We were shopping the whole day, examining rugs,
choosing hangings, discussing arrangements and esti-
mating things. Juliette would have liked to buy every-
thing she saw, but she professed a preference for ela-
borate furniture, for loud-colored draperies and heavy
embroidery. The glitter of new gold, the dazzling
effect of harsh colors attracted, fascinated her. When-
ever I ventured to remark something to her, she would
Say at once:

“ How do men come to know about these things? . .
Women know better.”

She was obdurate in her desire to buy a kind of
Arabian chest, frightfully daubed up, set with mother-
of-pearl, ivory imitation stones, and of immense size.

“You can see for yourself that it’s too large, that
it won’t get into our house at all,” I said to her.

“Do you really think so? Well how about sawing
off the legs, dearie? ”

And more than twenty times during the day she
stopped in the middle of her conversation to ask me:

“Well, do you really think it is too large? . . . That
beautiful chest I mean.”

In the carriage, as soon as she got in, Juliette nestled
close to me, offered me her lips, smothered me with
caresses, happy, radiant.

“Oh! you naughty boy, who never said a word to

134 CALVARY

me, and who stood just looking at me, with his sad
eyes. . . yes, your beautiful sad eyes that I love...
you naughty! ... I had to start it all myself! ...
hadn’t I? . . . otherwise you would have never dared,
would you? ... Were you afraid of me, tell me? Do
you remember when you took me in your arms, that
evening? I did not know where I was, I could no
longer see anything. ... My throat, my chest felt
as though I had swallowed something very hot... .
isn’t that funny. .. . I thought I was going to die. . .
burned by you. ... It was so sweet, so sweet! ...
Why, I have loved you since the first day we met... .
No, I was in love with you before. ... Ah, you are

laughing! ... You don’t believe then that you can
love someone without knowing or seeing him?...
Well I do! ... Iam sure of it! ...”

My heart was beating so fast, these words were so
new to me, that I could not find anything to say in
reply; I was choking with happiness. All I could do
was to clasp Juliette in my arms, mutter some inar-
ticulate words and weep with joy. Suddenly she be-
came thoughtful, the furrow on her forehead deepened,
she withdrew her hand from mine. I was afraid I had
offended her:

“What’s the matter, my Juliette?” I asked her.
“Why do you look so? ... Have I hurt you?”

And Juliette, disconsolate, said’ with a sigh:

“ The corner-buffet, my dear! . . . The corner-buffet
for the parlor which we have entirely forgotten.”

She quickly passed from laughter, from kisses to
sudden gravity, mingled words of endearment with
ceiling measurements, confused love with tapestry. . .
It was delightful.

In our room, in the evening, all this pretty childish-
ness disappeared. Love stamped upon the face of
Juliette something austere, deliberate and ferocious

CALVARY 135

which I could not explain; it changed her entirely.
She was not depraved; on the contrary, her passion
showed itself to be strong and normal, and in her
caresses there was awe-inspiring nobility and courage.
Her body trembled as if in terrible labor.

My happiness lasted but a short time. . . . My hap-
piness!... It is really remarkable that never, never
have I been permitted to enjoy anything fully, and
that invariably anxiety came to disturb the brief pe-
riods of my happiness. Defenseless and powerless
against suffering, not sure of myself and timid in the
hours of happiness— such I have been all my life.
Is it a tendency peculiar to my nature? A strange
perversion of my sensibilities?. . . Or is it rather that
happiness in my own case as well as in the case of
everybody else is really deceptive, and that it is
nothing but a more tormenting and more refined form
of universal suffering? ...

Now this for example. ... The faint glimmer of
the night-lamp flickers feebly upon the curtains and
the furniture; Juliette is asleep, early in the morning,
the morning after our first night. One of her arms,
bare, rests upon the sheet; the other, also bare, is
gracefully coiled up under her nape. All around her
face — which reflects the pallid light of the bed, a
face which looks like that of a murdered person, with
eyes encircled by dark rings—her loose black hair
is scattered, sinuous and flowing like waves! I con-
template her eagerly. ... She is sleeping close to
me, with a deep calm sleep, like a child. And for the
first time possession occasions no regret, no disgust in
me; for the first time I am able to look at a woman
who has just given herself to me. I cannot express
my feelings at this moment. What I feel is something
indefinable, something exceedingly sweet and at the
same time very grave and holy, a sort of religious

136 CALVARY

ecstasy similar to the one which I experienced at the
time of my first communion. . . I recognize the same
mystic transport, the same great and sacred awe; it is
like another revelation of God taking place in the
' transplendent light of my soul. ... It seems to me
that God has come down to me for the second time....
She sleeps, in the silence of the room, with her mouth
half-open, her nostrils motionless; she sleeps with
a sleep so gentle that I cannot even hear her breath-
ing. ... A flower on the mantlepiece is there, wither-
ing, and a whiff of its dying fragrance reaches me.
I can’t hear Juliette at all, she is only asleep, she is
breathing, she is alive and yet I can’t hear her. I move
nearer to her and gently bend over her, almost touch-
ing her with my lips, and in an almost inaudible voice
I call her.

“ Juliette! ”

Juliette does not stir. But I feel her breath, fainter
than that of the flower, her breath always so fresh,
with which at this moment there is mingled, like a waft
of warmth, her fragrant breath which blends with an
imperceptible odor of decay.

“ Juliette!”

Juliette does not stir. But the sheet which follows
the curves of her body, showing the shape of her limbs,
loosens itself into a rigid crease, and the sheet looks
to me like a shroud; And the thought of death sud-
denly comes to my mind and lingers there. I begin to
be afraid that Juliette is dead.

“ Juliette!”

Juliette does not stir. My whole being is now
plunged into a frenzy of fear, and while in my ears
the distant knell resounds, around the bed I see the
light of a thousand funeral tapers trembling under the
vibrations of a de profundis prayer. My hair stands
on end, my teeth chatter and I shout, I shout:

CALVARY 137

“Juliette! Juliette!”

At last Juliette moves her head, heaves a sigh and
murmurs, as if in a dream:

“Jean!... My Jean!”

Forcefully I grasp her into my arms as if to defend
her against some one; I draw her toward me and
trembling, with my blood running cold, I beg her:

“ Juliette!... My own Juliette. . . don’t sleep...
Oh, please don’t sleep! ... You frighten me! . . Let
me see your eyes; talk to me, talk to me!...
And pinch me, pinch yourself, too, pinch me hard... .
But don’t sleep any more, please. .. .”

She cuddles into my arms, whispers some unintel-
ligible words and falls asleep again, her head hanging
on my shoulder.... But the apparition of death,
stronger than the awakening of love, persists, and
although I feel the regular beating of Juliette’s heart
against my own, it does not vanish until day.

How often since that time, when with her, I have
felt the frigid touch of death in her fiery kisses! ...
And how often in the midst of rapture there appeared
to me the sudden and capering image of the singer
at the Bouffes!. .. How many times did his lustful
laugh drown the ardent words of Juliette!... How
often I have heard him say to me, while his image
kept leaping above me: “ Go ahead, glut yourself upon
this imbecile body, upon this unclean body which I
defiled!. .. Go on!... Go on!... wherever you
touch your lips you will breathe the impure odor of my
own; wherever your caresses may wander upon this
body of a prostitute they will encounter the filthy
marks of my own manhandling. . .. Go ahead, wash
her, your Juliette, wash her in the lustral water of
your love, cleanse her with the acid of your mouth. . .
Strip off her skin with your teeth, if you will; you will

138 CALVARY

efface nothing, never, because the mark of infamy
with which I have branded her is ineffaceable.”

And I often had a passionate desire to question
Juliette about this singer whose vision haunted me so
much. But I had not the courage. I contented my-
self with trying to get at the truth in an ingenious,
roundabout way: often, in the midst of conversation
I would mention a name unexpectedly, hoping, yes
hoping that Juliette would be a little put out by it, that
she would blush, would feel embarrassed and would
say: “ Yes, that’s the one.” I thus exhausted the list
of names of all the singers in all the theatres, without
gaining the least evidence of perturbation in Juliette’s
impenetrable attitude.

It took us almost three months to install ourselves
completely. The upholsterers could never get through
with their work and Juliette’s caprices often called
for changes that took a long time to accomplish. Every
day she would come back from her shopping with new
ideas about the decoration of the parlor, or the dress-
ing room, The hangings in the bedroom had to be
entirely changed three times because she did not like
them.

Finally one nice morning we took possession of our
apartment on the Rue de Balzac.... It was high
time we did. ... All this unsettled existence, this
continuous hurry, these open trunks yawning like cof-
fins, this brutal scattering of dear and intimate things,
these heaps of linen, these pyramids of boxes turned
upside down, these cut-up pieces of string which
dragged all over, all this disorder, this chaos, this
trampling underfoot of things with which are asso-
ciated the dearest memories or most tender regrets,
and above all this feeling of uncertainty, of terror,
and the sad reflections which the act of leaving a

pple ed CALVARY 139

place occasions —all this made me uneasy, dejected
and, must I say it, remorseful.

While Juliette was moving about, bustling amidst
bundles, I was asking myself whether I had not com-
mitted some irreparable folly. Of course, I loved
her. ... Ah! I loved her with all the power of my
soul. So far, nothing except this passion which ob-
sessed me more and more every day, interested me at
all. Still, I regretted that I had yielded so easily and
quickly to an infatuation that was perhaps fraught
with the gravest consequences for her and myself.
I was dissatisfied with myself for not having been able
to resist Juliette’s wish, expressed in such delicious
fashion, that I live together with her. ... Could we
not love each other just as well if each of us lived
separately and avoid the possible clashes over such
sordid things as wall-paper, for example.

And while the splendor of all this plush and the
insolence of all these gilt objects in the midst of which
we were now going to live frightened me, I felt a sor-
rowful attachment for my own scanty furniture placed
without order, for my little apartment, austere yet
tranquil, and now empty—an attachment one has
for beloved things that are dead. But Juliette would
pass by, busy, agile and charming, would embrace
and kiss me on her way, and there was such a life-
giving joy in her whole being, a joy so easily mingled
with astonishment and childish despair at anything
lost, that my morose thoughts vanished as do the
night owls at sunrise.

Ah! the happy days that followed our moving from
the Rue Saint Petersbourg! ... First we had to test
every piece of furniture down to the smallest details.
Juliette sat on every divan, lounge and sofa, causing
the springs to creak.

“You try it also, my dear,” she would say to me.

140 CALVARY

She examined every piece of furniture, scrutinized
the hangings, tried the strings of the door curtain,
moved a chair to a different place, smoothed a crease
in the draperies. And every instant cries of admira-
tion, of ecstasy were heard!

Then she wanted to start the inspection of the
apartment all over again with the windows closed
and the lights burning, in order to see the effect pro-
duced at night, never tiring of examining a thing more
than once, running from one room to another, marking
down every defect on a piece of paper. Then it was
the wardrobe where she put her linen and mine with
meticulous care and elaborate nicety and the consum-
mate skill of a stall keeper. I chided her for assigning
to me the better scentbags.

“No! no! no! I want to have a little husband who
uses perfume!”

Of her old furniture and old knick-knacks, Juliette
had kept only the terra-cotta statue of Love which
again took its place of honor on the mantlepiece in the
parlor. I, on the other hand, had brought over only
my books and two very beautiful sketches by Lirat
which I thought it a duty to hang up in my study. ©
Scandalized, Juliette cried with indignation:

“What are you doing there, my dear?... Such
horrible things in our new apartment!. .. Please put
these horrible things away somewhere! Oh, put them
away!”

“My dear Juliette,” I answered somewhat provoked.
“You have kept your terra-cotta statue of Love, not
sop”

“Certainly I have. ... But what has that to do
with this? ... My terra-cotta statue is very, very
lovely. Whereas that thing there... why really!

. . . And then it’s improper! .. . Besides, every time

CALVARY 141

I look at the paintings of that fool Lirat I feel a pain
in my stomach.”

Before that I used to have the courage of my artistic
convictions and. I defended them with fire. But now
it seemed puerile on my part to engage in a discussion
of art with Juliette, so I contented myself with hiding
the pictures inside a press without much regret.

Finally the day arrived when everything was in
admirable order; everything in its place, the smallest
objects resting smartly on the tables, console tables,
windows; the stands decorated with large leafed
plants; the books in the library within reach; Spy in
his new niche and flowers everywhere. ... Nothing
. was missing, nothing, not even a rose, whose stem
bathed in a long thin glass vase standing on my desk.
Juliette was radiant, triumphant; she repeated with-
out end:

“Look, look again how well your little wife has
worked!”

And resting her head on my shoulder with a tender
look in her eyes and a genuinely agitated voice, she
murmured:

“Oh, my adored Jean, at last we are in our own
home, our own home, just think of it!. . . How happy
we shall be here, in our pretty nest!.. .”

The next morning Juliette said to me:

“It has been along time since you saw Monsieur
Lirat. I don’t want him to think that I keep you from
visiting him.”

It was true, nevertheless. It really seemed as if
for the last five months, I had forgotten all about
poor Lirat. But had I really forgotten him? Alas no!

. Shame kept me from going to him. ... Shame
alone estranged me from him. ... I assure you that
I would have never hesitated to announce to the whole

142 CALVARY

world: “I am Juliette’s lover!”; but I had not the
courage to utter these words in Lirat’s presence.
At first I had a notion to confess all to him, no

matter what happened to our friendship. . . . I would
say to myself: “all right, tomorrow I am going to see
Lirat”. .. I would make up my mind firmly....
And the next day: “Not now. .. there is nothing
pressing. .. . tomorrow!. . .” Tomorrow, always to-
morrow!. .. And days, weeks, months passed... .
Tomorrow! :

Now that he had been told all about these things
by Malterre, who even before my departure used to
come and make his sofa groan, how could I broach
the subject to him? . . . What could I say to him? ..
How endure his look, his contempt, his anger... .
His anger, perhaps!. . . But his contempt, his terrible
silence, the disconcerting sneer which I already saw
taking shape at the corner of his mouth. . .. No, no,
really I did not dare!... To try to mollify him, to
take his hand, to ask his forgiveness for my lack of
confidence in him, to appeal to the generosity of his
heart!. .. No! It would ill become me to assume
such a part, and then Lirat with just one word could
throw a. damper on me and stop my effusion... .
What’s the use! . . . Each day that passed separated
us further, estranged us from each other more and
more. ..a few more months and there would no
longer be any Lirat to reckon with in my life! ...I
should prefer that rather than cross his threshold
and face him in person. . . . I replied to Juliette:

“Lirat?. .. Oh yes. ... I think I’ll do that some
of these days!” .

“No, no!” insisted Juliette.... “Today! You
know him, you know how mean he is. God knows
how many ugly things he must have said about us!”

I had to make up my mind to see him, From the

CALVARY 143

Rue de Balzac to Rodrigue Place is but a short dis-
tance. To postpone as long as possible the moment of
this painful interview I made a long detour on my
way, walking as far as the shop district of the Saint
Honoré suburb. And I was thinking to myself: “ Sup-
pose I don’t go to see Lirat at all. I can tell her, when
I come back, that we have quarrelled, and I can in-
vent some sort of a story that will forever relieve me
of the necessity of this visit.” I felt ashamed of this
boyish thought. . . . Then I hoped that Lirat was not
at home! With what joy could I then roll up my
card into a tube and slip it through the keyhole! Com-
forted by this thought I at last turned in the direction
of Rodrigue Place and stopped in front of the door
of the studio—and this door seemed to fill me with
fear. Still I rapped at it and presently a voice, Lirat’s
voice, called:

“Come in!”

My heart beat furiously, a bar of fire stopped my
throat —I wanted to flee. .

“Come in!” the voice repeated.

I turned the door knob.

“ Ah! Is that you, Mintié,” Lirat exclaimed. “ Come
on in.”

Lirat was seated at his table, writing a letter.

“May I finish this?” he said to me. “Just two
more minutes and I'll be through.”

He resumed writing. It was a relief not to feel upon
myself the chill of his look. I took advantage of the
fact that his back was turned to unburden my soul
to him.

“T have not seen you for such a long time, my good
Lirat.”

“Why, yes, my dear Mintié!”

“T have moved.”

“ Ah, is that so!”

144 CALVARY

“T live on the Rue de Balzac.”

“ Nice place!”

I was suffocating. . .. I made a supreme effort to
gather all my strength. . . but by a strange aberra-
tion I thought I would succeed better by adopting a
flippant method of approach. Upon my word of honor!
I railed, yes, railed at myself.

“JT have come to tell you some news which will

amuse you....Ha!....Ha!... which will amuse
you... Iam sure...I...I... live with Juliette.
...Ha!l...Ha!... with Juliette Roux... Juli-
ette, you know. .. . Ha! Ha!”

“ Congratulations!” He uttered this word “ con-
gratulations ” in a perfectly calm, indifferent voice. . .
Was it possible! No hiss, no anger, no jumping at
me!... Just “ Congratulations!. ...” As one might
say: “how do you expect that to interest me?” And
his back bent over the table remained motionless with-
out straightening up, without stirring!... His pen
did not slip from his hand; he continued to write!
What I told him just now he had known long ago. . .
But to hear it out of my own mouth!. . . I was stupe-
fied —and shall I confess it?p—I was wounded by
the fact that the matter did not seem to affect him
at all!. .. Lirat rose and rubbing his hands:

“Well! what’s new?” he asked.

I could not stand it any longer. I rushed toward
him with tears in my eyes.

“Listen to me,” I shouted sobbing. “ Lirat, for
God’s sake, listen to me. . . . I did not act fairly to-
ward you.... I know it. ...and I ask your for-
giveness. ... I should have told you all.... But I
did not have the courage to. .. . You frighten me. . .
And then. . . you remember Juliette, the one you told
me about, right here. . . you remember. . . she is the

CALVARY 145

one who kept me from doing that. ... Do you un-
derstand?”

“My dear Mintié,” interrupted Lirat, “I did not
want you to tell me anything. I am neither your
father nor your confessor. Do what you please, that
does not concern me in the least.”

I became excited.

“You are not my father, that is true... but you
are my friend. . . and I owe you all the confidence in
the world.... Forgive me!... Yes, I live with
Juliette, and I love her and she loves me! ... Is ita
crime to seek a little happiness?... Juliette is not
the kind of a woman you thought she was... she
has been calumniated most odiously, Lirat.... She
is kind and honest. ... Oh, don’t smile. . . she is
honest!... She has some childish ways about her
that would touch even you, Lirat. You don’t like her
because you don’t know her. ... If you only knew
how kind and considerate she is to me! Juliette wants

me to work. ... She ardently believes in me, in my
ability to create. ... Why it was she who sent me
here to see you. I was ashamed and afraid. ... Yes

she made me do that! Have a little consideration for
her, Lirat. Love her a little, I beg of you!”

Lirat became grave. He put his hand on my shoulder
and, looking at me wistfully:

“My dear child!” he said to me in a trembling
voice, “ why do you tell me all that?”

“ Because it is the truth, my dear Lirat!. . because
I love you and I want to remain your friend. . . Show
me that you are my friend no matter what happens...
Here now, come to have dinner with us this evening,
as we used to in the past, in my own house. Oh, please
come!”

“No,” he said.

146 CALVARY

And this “ no ” was relentless, final, curt, like a gun-
shot.

Lirat added:

“ But you come often!. .. And whenever you feel
like crying. .. the sofa is there... you know....
The tears of poor devils are quite known to it.”

When the door was shut behind me, it seemed that
something huge and heavy had closed itself upon my
past, that walls higher than the sky and darker than
the night had separated me forever from my decent
life, from my dreams of art. There was anguish in my
whole being. .. . For a minute I stood there, stupe-
fied, with swinging arms, with eyes inordinately dis-
tended, staring at that prophetic door behind which
something had just come to a close, something had
just died.

CHAPTER VI

beautiful apartment where she had promised her-

self so much peace and happiness. Having ar-
ranged her wardrobes and put her knick-knacks in
order, she did not know what to do next and was sur-
prised at this discovery. The tapestry no longer ex-
cited her admiration, reading afforded her no distrac-
tion. She passed from one room to another, without
knowing what to do, what to busy her mind with,
yawning, stretching herself. She shut herself up in
her room where she spent hours in dressing herself,
in trying on new clothes in front of the looking glass,
in turning the faucet of the bath tub, which occupa-
tion amused her for a while, in combing Spy and in
making elaborate bows for him from the bands of her °
old hats.

Managing the house might have filled the void of her
idle days, but I soon realized with chagrin that Juliette
was not at all the housekeeper she had boasted she
was. She was careless, had no taste, was preoccupied
only with her linen underwear and her dog; every-
thing else was of no importance to her, and things
took their own course or rather went according to the
wishes of the servants. Our renewed staff of do-
mestics consisted of a cook, an old, sloppy woman,
grasping and ill-tempered, whose cooking talents did
not extend beyond tapioca pudding, hashed veal with
white sauce and salad; a chamber maid, Celestine, im-
pudent and depraved, who respected only people who
spent large sums of money, and a housekeeper, Mother
Sochard, who prayed incessantly and often used to get

J vecssita was not long in wearying of this

148 CALVARY

frightfully drunk in order to fofget her troubles, as
she said: her husband who beat her and took away her
money, and her daughter who was good for nothing.

The waste was enormous, our table very bad and
the rest correspondingly so. Whenever we happened
to have visitors, Juliette would order from Bignon
the rarest and most elaborate dishes. I viewed with
displeasure the uncommon intimacy, a sort of bond
of friendship, which had sprung up between Juliette
and Celestine. When dressing her mistress, the maid
told her stories which the former enjoyed immensely ;
she disclosed improper secrets of the homes where she
had served and advised Juliette in all matters. “ At
Mme. K’s they do it this way — at Mme. V’s they do it
that way.” That they were “ swell places ” goes without
saying. Juliette often went into the linen room where
Celestine was sewing and stayed there for hours, seated
on a heap of bed sheets, listening to the inexhaustible
gossip of the servant-girl... From time to time an argu-
ment would arise over some stolen thing or some
neglected duty. Celestine would get excited, hurling
the grossest insults, knocking the furniture, screaming
in her squeaky voice:

“Well!. . Many thanks to you!.. This is some
dirty place!. . A goose like that has the nerve to ac-
cuse one!.. Well look here, my pretty one, I am
going to shake myself free from you and your boob
over there who has the face of a dunce.”

Juliette would tell her to get out immediately, not
wishing her even to stay out her week.

“Yes, yes! Pack up at once, you nasty girl. . . right
away!”

She would come to sulk in my presence, pale and
trembling:

“Ah! my dear, that vile creature, that wretched
woman! ... And I who was so kind to her! . . .”

CALVARY 149

In the evening they would make up again, and
amidst laughter which resounded louder than ever,
Celestine’s voice would baw! out:

“T should say the Countess was a rude slut!”

One day Juliette said to me:

“ Your little wifie has nothing to put on. She is as
naked as a new born child, the poor thing!”

And so there were new visits to the dressmaker’s,
to the milliner’s, to the linen shop; and she again be-
came gay, vivacious, affectionate. The shadow of
boredom which had crossed her countenance disap-
peared. ... In the midst of materials, laces, among
plumes and gewgaws, her whole being expanded and
shone forth. Her tender fingers experienced a phys-
ical delight in handling satin, in touching crepe, in
stroking velvet, in losing themselves in the milky
white waves of fine batiste. The smallest piece of silk,
when she draped it into something, at once assumed
the pretty appearance of a living thing; out of braid
and lace trimmings she could draw the most exquisite
harmonies. Although I was very much alarmed by
these expensive whims, I could not refuse Juliette any-
thing, and I abandoned myself to the joy of seeing
her so happy, to the delight of seeing her so charm-
ing — her, whose beauty rendered all inanimate ob-
jects about her beautiful, her, who put the breath of
gracious life into everything she touched!

For more than a month packages and strange cases
were being delivered to us every evening. . . . Dresses
followed dresses, hats followed cloaks, umbrellas and
embroidered chemises; the most expensive linens ac-
cumulated in heaps and filled all the drawers, presses,
wardrobes.

“You see, my dear,” Juliette explained to me, dis-
cerning amazement in my glance. “ You see I did
not have anything. .. . This is all I need. From now

150 CALVARY

on, all I’ll have to do is to receive people. ... Ah
don’t be afraid! . . . I am very economical. See here,
I have had a high body made in all my gowns for
every day use on the street, and a decolleté to wear
at the Opera! Just figure out how many dresses that
will save me... . Ong. . . two. .. three. . . four. . .
five. . ..dresses, my dear! ... You see now!”

For the first appearance at the theatre she put on a
gown that was the sensation of the evening. As long
as the tormenting affair lasted I was the most miser-
able man in the world. . . . I felt the covetous glances
of the entire audience directed on Juliette, glances
that devoured her, that disrobed her, glances that de-
file the woman one adores. I would have liked to hide
Juliette deep in the loge and throw a thick dark woolen
cloak on her shoulders, and with heart clawed by
hatred I wished the theatre had sunk into the ground
through some sudden cataclysm, that by a sudden
collapse of its ceiling and chandeliers it had crushed
to a powder all these men, each of whom was stealing
a little of Juliette’s chastity, a little of her love from
me. She, on the other hand, triumphant, seemed to
say: “I love you all, gentlemen, for thinking me beau-
tiful. You are nice people.”

Scarcely did we enter our house when I drew Juliette
toward me and for a long, long time held her pressed
to my heart, repeating without end: “You love me,
Juliette, don’t you?” but the heart of Juliette was no
longer listening to me. Seeing that I was sad, no-
ticing that from my eyelids tears were about to fall
upon her cheek, she freed herself from my embrace
and said somewhat angrily:

“What! I was the prettiest, the most beautiful of
them all! ... And you are not satisfied yet?...
And you are crying yet!... That is not nice at
all! ... What more do you want?”

CALVARY 151

Our first disagreeable quarrel arose over Juliette’s
friends. Gabrielle Bernier, Jesselin and some other
people, formerly brought over to our house at the Rue
de Saint Petersbourg by Malterre, again began to pur-
sue us at the Rue de Balzac. I frankly told her so;
she seemed very much surprised.

“What have you against Monsieur Jesselin?” she
asked me. She used to call the others by their Chris-
tian names. . . but she pronounced the name Monsieur
Jesselin with great respect.

“T certainly have nothing against him, my dear. . .
But I don’t like him, he gets on my nerves. . . he is
ridiculous. Here, then, I think are good reasons for
not wishing to see that idiot.”

Juliette was shocked. That I should have called
a man of Monsieur Jesselin’s importance and reputa-
tion an idiot was quite incomprehensible to her. She
looked at me with fear as if I had just uttered a terrible

blasphemy.

“Monsieur Jesselin, an idiot!... He. ... sucha
gentleman, so serious minded, and who has been to
India! ... Don’t you know that he is a member of
the Geographical Society?”

“What about Gabrielle Bernier? .. Is she also a
member of the Geographical Society?”

As a rule Juliette never lost her temper. When she
was angry her look became severe, the wrinkle on her
forehead deepened, her voice lost a little of its sweet
sonorousness. She answered simply:

“ Gabrielle is my friend.”

“That’s just what I object to.”

There was a moment of silence. Juliette, seated in
an armchair, was fingering the lace of her morning
gown, thinking. An ironic smile wandered on her
lips.

“Do you mean to say that I must not see anyone?

152 CALVARY

... Is that what you want? ... Well that’s going
to be very amusing. ... We shall never go out any
more. . . we shall live like beasts! .. .”

“ That’s not the question at all, my dear. . . . I have
some friends. . . I’ll ask them to come... .”

“Oh yes, I know your friends. . . . I can see them
right before me, writers, painters. .. people whom
one doesn’t understand when they talk. . . and who
borrow money from us. . . Thank you very much!..”

I felt offended and quickly replied:

“ My friends are honest people, do you hear, with
talent, whereas that idiot and that nasty woman! .. .”

“ T think we have had enough of this,” Juliette impe-
riously said. “Is that your wish? ... All right. I
shall close my door to them. Only when you insisted
on my living with you, you should have told me that
you wanted to bury me alive. I would have known
what to do then... .”

She rose. I was not even thinking of telling her
that, on the contrary, it was she who had wished that
we keep house together. Realizing that it was useless
to argue any further I took her hand:

“ Juliette,” I entreated her.

“Well, what do you want?”

“ Are you angry?”

“JT, on the contrary, Iam very much contented... .”
“ Juliette!”
“Come, let go of me... quit... you hurt me.”

Juliette was sulky all day; when I said something
to her she did not answer or contented herself with
articulating monosyllables curtly and with irritation.
I was unhappy and angry at the same time; I would
have liked to embrace her and to beat her, to shower
kisses and kicks on her. At dinner she still kept the
air of an offended woman, with her lips firmly closed
and a disdainful look in her eyes. In vain did I try

CALVARY 153

to appease her by humble conduct and sad repentant
looks; her assumed sullenness remained unchanged,
on her brow there was still that dark furrow which
made me uneasy. At night, in bed, she took a book
and turned her back to me. And the back of her per-
fumed neck to which my lips loved to cling with rap-
turous joy, now seemed to me harder than a stone
wall.... Within me deep resentment was stirring,
but I forced myself not to betray it. In the measure
that I was filled with rage, my voice sought sweeter
accents, it grew gentler and more beseeching.

“Juliette! my Juliette! ... Speak to me, please!
Speak to me! Did I offend you, was I too harsh

with you? I know I was. ... Well, I am sorry and
I ask your forgiveness. ... But only speak to me.”

My impression was that Juliette was not listening
to me at all. She was cutting the pages of the book,
and the noise of the friction of the knife against the
paper annoyed me terribly.

“My Juliette. ... Please understand me.... It

is because I love you that I said that.... It is be-
cause I wish to see you pure, respected, and because
it seems to me that all those are unworthy of you. .
If I did not love you, would that make any difference
to me? ... And you think that I don’t want you to
go out! ... Why no.... We shall go out often,
every evening. ... Ah, please don’t be like that! ...
I was wrong!... Scold me, strike me.... But
only speak to me, please speak to me!”

She continued turning the pages of the book. The
words were throttled in my throat.

“It is not fair to act the way you do, Juliette. It
is not nice at all to be like that. .. . Since I admitted
my guilt! Ah, what pleasure do you get out of tor-
turing me like this? ... Didn’t I say I was sorry?
Come on, Juliette, I admit I was wrong! ”

154 CALVARY

Not a muscle in her body moved in response to my
supplication. Her nape exasperated me more than
ever. Amidst locks of silky hair I now saw eyes which:
railed at me and a mouth which mocked me. And I
had an impulse to strike her, to belabor her with my
fists, to beat her till she bled.

“ Juliette!” I shouted.

And my fingers, shriveled, spread apart and hooked
like talons of a bird of prey, came close to her, in
spite of myself, ready to claw this nape, impatient to
tear it to pieces.

“ Juliette!”

Juliette slowly turned her head, looked at me with
contempt, without fear.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“What do I want? ... What do I want?”
I was going to threaten her.... I half arose in
bed, I was gesticulating violently. ... And suddenly

my rage subsided, I came close to Juliette, crouched
before her, filled with repentance, and kissing that per-
fumed and beautiful nape:

“What I want, my dear, is that you should be
happy. ... That you shall receive your friends. .. .
It was so foolish on my part to demand of you what I
did! . . .° Aren’t you the best of women? ... Don’t
I love you? ... Ah, hereafter I shall have no other
wish than yours, I promise you! ... And you'll see
how nice I am going to be to them! ... Wait. ...
Why should you not inyite Gabrielle for dinner? .. .
And Jesselin also?”

“No! No! You say it now, but tomorrow you'll
reproach me for it.... No! No!... I don’t want
to force upon you people whom you despise — nasty
women and idiots!”

“T don’t know where my head was when I said
that.... I don’t despise them at all... on the

CALVARY 155

contrary I like them very much. ... Invite both of
them. ... And I’ll go and get a box at the Vaude-
ville.”

“cc No ! ”?

“T implore you!”

Her voice became less harsh, she closed the book.

“Well! We'll see tomorrow.”

Really, at that moment I loved Gabrielle, Jesselin,
Celestine —I even thought I loved Malterre.

I no longer worked. Not that love of work deserted
me, but I no longer had the creative faculty in me. I
used to sit down at my desk every day, with blank
sheets of paper before me, searching for ideas, and
failing to find them, I would again relapse into anxie-
ties of the present, which meant Juliette, into dread
of the future, which again meant Juliette! ... Just
as a drunkard clutches and turns his empty bottle to
get the last drop of liquor out of it, so I searched my
brains in the hope of squeezing the least bit of an
idea out of it.... Alas! My head was empty!

It was empty and weighed upon my shoulders like
an enormous ball of lead! ... My mentality was al-
ways slow in getting started: it required stimulation,
it had to be lashed with a whip. Because of my ill-
balanced sensibility, my passive nature, I easily
yielded to intellectual or moral influences, whether
good or bad. And again, Lirat’s friendship was quite
useful to me in the past. My own ideas melted in the
warmth of his spirit; his conversation opened for me
new horizons hitherto unsuspected ; whatever confused
ideas I had were cleared up, they assumed a more
definite form which I endeavored to express; he taught
me how to see, to understand things and made me
delve with him into the mysteries of life.

Now, the clear horizons toward which I was led
shrunk and were shut off before me daily, almost

156 CALVARY

hourly, and night was coming, black night, which to
me was not only visible but tangible, for I could ac-
tually touch this monstrous night, I felt its darkness
stuck fast in my hair, glued to my fingers, coiled
around my body in clammy rings... .

My study room opened into a yard, or rather a little
garden shaded by two large plane-trees and bounded
by a wall that had lattice work and was covered with
ivy. Behind this wall, in the midst of another garden,
the grey and very high facade of a house rose, accost-
ing me with five rows of windows. On the third floor
an old man sat near the window opening which en-
cased him like a picture frame. He wore a cap of
black velvet, a checkered morning robe, and he never
stirred. Shrunk into himself, his head drooping on
his chest, he seemed asleep. Of his face I could see
only wrinkles of yellowish, wrinkled flesh, dark cavi-
ties and locks which looked like tufts of a soiled beard,
resembling some strange vegetation sprouting on the
trunks of dead trees. Sometimes the profile of a wom-
an would bend over him sinisterly, and this profile
had the appearance of an owl perched upon the aged
man’s shoulder; I could discern its hooked bill and
round eyes, cruel, avaricious and bloodthirsty. When
the sun shone into the garden, the window opened
and I heard a shrill, piercing, angry voice which never
ceased screaming reproaches. Then the old man would
shrink into himself still farther, his head would begin
to oscillate slightly, then he would become motionless
again, still more buried in the folds of his morning
robe, still deeper sunk in his armchair.

I used to sit for hours and watch the unhappy man,
and I fancied terrible tragedies, some fatal love affair,
a noble life bungled, crushed and ruined by that wom-
an with the owl face. I pictured to myself this living
corpse as beautiful, young and strong.... Perhaps

CALVARY 157

he had been an artist once upon a time, a scientist, or
simply a happy and kind-hearted man. And tall and
upright, with a gaze full of hope, he marched towards
- glory or happiness. ... One day he met that woman
at the house of a friend .. . and that woman, too,
wore a perfumed veil, a small muff, an otter skin cap,
a heavenly smile, and an air of angelic sweetness. ...
And forthwith he fell in love with her. . . . I followed
step by step the development of his love affair, I
counted up his weaknesses, his moments of cowardice,
his growing downfalls up to the time of his sinking
into this armchair for cripples and paralytics.

And what I imagined his life was to him, my own
life was to me, those were my own feelings, it was my
own dread of the future, my own anguish. ... Little
by little my hallucination took on a singular physical
form, and it was myself that I saw in this velvet cap,
in this morning robe with this battered body, this
murky beard, and Juliette who stood over my shoulder
like an owl. ...

Juliette! ... She walked about in the study,
weary of body, her whole figure betraying boredom,
yawning and sighing. She could not think of any-
thing to distract her. Most often she would place the
card table not far from me and lose herself in the card
combinations of a complicated “patience,” or she
would stretch herself out on the sofa, spread a napkin
over her dress, place upon it some tiny instruments of
tortoise shell, microscopic containers of ointment, and
begin polishing her nails, fiercely filing them and mak-
ing them shine more lustrously than agate. She would
examine them every five minutes, looking for the re-
flection of her image in the polished surfaces:

“Look my dear! Aren’t they beautiful! And you,
too, Spy, look at your mistress’ pretty nails.”

The light friction of the nail brush, the impercepti-

158 CALVARY

ble creaking of the sofa, Juliette’s remarks, her con-
versation with Spy —all this was sufficient to put to
rout the few ideas which I strove to bring together.
My thoughts would turn immediately to ordinary
matters, and I meditated upon painful things and lived
sorrowful things over again. ... Juliette.... Did
I love her? Many times this question arose in my
mind, pregnant with horrible doubt. ... Had I not
been deceived by the stupefaction of my senses? .. .
Was not this thing which I took for love, the ephe-
meral and fleeting manifestation of a pleasure as yet
untasted? ... Juliette! . . . Of course I loved her. . .

But this Juliette whom I loved, was she not alto-
gether different, was she not the Juliette that I had
myself created, that had been born of my own imagi-
nation, that had originated in my own brains, whom
I had endowed with a soul, with a spark of divinity,
whom I had fashioned into being with the ideal es-
sence of angels? ... And did I not still love her as
one does a beautiful book, a beautiful verse, a beauti-
ful statue, a visible and tangible realization of an ar-

tist’s dream! ... But this other Juliette! ... This
one here? ... This pretty, senseless, ignorant ani-
mal, this knick-knack, this piece of cloth, this noth-
ingri....’.

I studied her carefully while she was polishing her
nails... . Oh, how I would have liked to break this
neck and sound its emptiness, to open this heart and
probe its nothingness! And I said to myself: “ What
sort of a life will mine be with this woman whose
tastes are only for pleasure, who is happy only when
she is dressed up, whose every wish costs a fortune,
who in spite of her chaste appearance, has an instinc-
tive predilection for vice; who used to leave unhappy
Malterre every evening, without a single regret, with-
out a single thought; who will leave me tomorrow,

CALVARY 159

perhaps; this woman who is a living denial of my
aspirations, of my ideals; who will never, never enter
into my intellectual life; and lastly this woman who
already weighs upon my intelligence like folly, upon
my whole being like a crime.”

I had a notion to flee, to tell Juliette: “I am going
out, I’ll be back in an hour,” and never to return to
this house where the very ceiling was more oppressive
to me than the lid of a coffin, where the air stifled me,
where the very furniture seemed to say to me: “ Leave
this place” ... But no! ... I loved her, and it was
this very Juliette that I loved, not the other one who
has gone the way of all dreams! . . . I loved her with
all her qualities which made me suffer, I loved her in
spite of all her lack of understanding, I loved her with
all her frivolity, with all her suspected perversions; I
loved her with that tormenting love which a mother
has for her afflicted child.

Have you ever met a poor creature huddled up be-
hind the door on some wintry day, a wretched human
being with chapped lips and chattering teeth, shiver-
ing in his tattered rags? . . . And when you met him,
were you not carried away by a feeling of keen pity,
and did you not have a desire to take him and warm
him against your breast, give him something to eat,
cover his shivering body with warm clothes?...
That is how I loved Juliette; I loved her with an im-
mense pity . . . ah, don’t laugh, with a mother’s pity,
with an endless pity! ...

“ Aren’t we going out, my dear? It would be so
nice to take a stroll through the Bois.”

And casting her eyes on the blank sheet of paper
on which I had not written a line:

“Ts that all you wrote? ... Well! ... You do
not seem to have worked very hard. . . . And here I
have been sitting around all this time to inspire you

160 CALVARY

to work! ... Oh, well, I know you won’t get any-
where. . . . You are too lazy!”

Ere long we began going out every day and every
evening. I did not resist any longer, almost happy
to escape from the deadly aversion and despondent
thoughts with which our apartment inspired me, es-
cape from the symbolic vision of the old man, from
myself. . . . Ah, above all from myself. In a crowd,
in the tumult, in this feverish haste of a pleasure-hunt-
ing life I hoped to find forgetfulness, to be able to
dull my feeling, to subdue my rebellious spirit, to
suppress the voice of my past which I heard grum-
bling within me. And since I could not raise Juliette
to my level I lowered myself down to her own.

Ah, those serene heights where the sun was reign-
ing and toward which I had been climbing slowly
with such terrific effort! . . . I must descend into the
pit at one dash, in a single, instantaneous, inevitable
downfall, even if I crushed my head against the rocks
or disappeared in the bottomless mire. With me it
was no longer a question of escape. If occasionally
the idea did pierce the haze of my mind, if, in the
errings of my will-power, I sometimes did perceive a
distant way out where duty seemed to call me, I, in
order to break away from the idea, in order not to
rush hastily toward that end, clung tenaciously to the
false pretenses of honor. . . . Could I leave Juliette!
I who insisted that she leave Malterre! .. . What
will become of her when I am gone? ... Why no,
no!—I was lying to myself. ...I did not want to
leave her because I loved her, because I pitied her,
because. . . . But was it not myself that I loved, my-
self that I pitied? ... Ah, I no longer knew! I no
longer knew!

And then again you should not think that the abyss
into which I had fallen was a sudden revelation to

CALVARY 161

me... . Don’t you believe it! I saw it from afar, I
saw its black opening yawning fearfully, and I ran
toward it. I leaned over the edge to inhale the in-
fected odor of its filth, I said to myself: “There is
where wasted lives and corrupted beings are dashed
and swallowed up. . . . Here one can never come up
again, never!” And I plunged into it....

Despite the threatening sky overcast with clouds,
the balcony of the café is crowded with people. There
is not a vacant table, the cabarets, the circus shows,
the theatres have poured forth the scum of their ha-
bitués here. Everywhere are bright-colored dresses
and black frock coats, ladies adorned with plumes like
horses in a parade, weary, sick looking and sallow;
flurried fops with heads drooped upon their button
holes without flowers, and nibbling the ends of their
canes with ape-like gestures. Some of them with legs
crossed in order to show their black silk socks em-
broidered with red flowerets, hats pushed over slightly
toward the back, are whistling the latest hit — the
air which has just now been sung at the Ambassa-
deur, to the accompaniment of the creaking of seats,
the clatter of glasses and bottles.

The last of the lights in front of the opera has been
extinguished. But all around it the windows of the
club-houses and brothels are a red blaze, like openings
into hell. On the street, parked near the curb, are
worn-out and dilapidated open coaches strung out in
triple file. Some of the drivers are drowsing in their
seats; others gathering into small groups which pre-
sent a comical appearance in their ill-fitting liveries,
are munching cigar stubs, and talking with loud bursts
of laughter, telling salacious stories about their clients.
One incessantly hears the shrill voice of the newspa-
per vendors who run back and forth shouting, in the
midst of their crisp outcries, the name of some well-

162 CALVARY

known woman, or some scandalous piece of news,
while street arabs, gliding between the tables, cunning
as cats, are selling obscene pictures, half revealed, to
awaken dormant passions, to stir up curiosities gone
to sleep. And little girls whose premature depravity
has already blighted their gaunt, childish faces are
offering for sale bouquets of flowers, smiling with a
dubious smile, charging their glances with the ripe
and hideous immodesty of old prostitutes. Inside the

cabaret all the tables are taken. ... There is nota -

single vacant place. ... People are drinking cham-
pagne without really wanting it and munching sand-
wiches without in the least caring for them. Occa-
sionally curious people enter the place, before going
to their clubs or to bed, by force of habit or from a
mere desire to show off or to see if there is “anything
doing” there. Slowly and slouching in their walk,
they slink about the groups of guests, stopping to
chat with their friends here and there and, waving
their hands in greeting to some one at a distance, look
at themselves in the mirrors, fix their white cravats
which stick out from under their light overcoats, then
leave, their minds enriched with a few new slang ex-
pressions of the underworld, with a few more scandals
picked up here and upon which their idleness will
thrive for a whole day.

The women with elbows resting on the table, an ice
cream soda in front of them, their weak faces, hatched
with fine pink lines, supported by long gloved hands,
assume a languid air, a suffering mien and a sort of
consumptive dreaminess. They exchange mysterious
winks and imperceptible smiles with their neighbors
at nearby tables, while the gentleman accompanying
them, silent and affectedly courteous, strikes the point
of his shoes with the tip of his cane. The gathering
presents a brilliant spectacle variegated with lace and

CALVARY 163

baubles, bright trimmings and pompons, tinged
plumes and flowers in full bloom, curls of blond hair,
tresses of dark hair and the glitter of diamonds. Every
one is at his fighting post, the young and the old,
beginners with beardless faces, grey-haired veterans,
naive gulls and crafty spongers, here were social scan-
dals, false situations, riotous vice, base covetousness,
shameful barter —all the flowers of corruption which
sprout — mingle, grow and thrive in the dunghill
warmth of Paris.

It was into this atmosphere charged with ennui,
restlessness and heavy odors that we used thereafter
to come every evening. During the day, visits to the
dressmakers, the Bois, the races; in the evening, res-
taurants, theatres and fashionable gatherings. Wher-
ever this special brand of society people came to-
gether, one was certain to see us; we were even made
much of because of Juliette’s beauty which began to
be the subject of people’s talk, and her dresses which
called forth the envy and emulation of other women.
We no longer dined at home. Our apartment served
us as hardly anything more than a place to dress.
When Juliette was dressing she grew harsh, even cruel.
The wrinkle on her forehead cut into her skin like a
scar. She uttered disjointed words, grew angry,
seemed to be incensed to the point of breaking up
things.

All around her the room seemed as if it had been
pillaged: trunks were opened, skirts thrown on the
carpet, fans taken out of their cases and scattered on
the chairs, opera glasses left on the furniture; muslin
gowns were lying in heaps in the corners, the floor
was strewn with flowers, towels, soiled with rouge,
gloves, stockings, veils were hanging on the branches
of the candlesticks. And in the midst of this con-
fusion, Celestine, agile, brazen-faced, cynical, was

164 CALVARY

going through all sorts of evolutions, jumping, sliding,
kneeling at the feet of her mistress, sticking a pin
_ here, adjusting the pleats there, knotting threads, her
soft, flabby hands, made to handle filthy things, gliding
all over Juliette’s body with affection. She was happy,
she no longer replied to insinuating remarks, to bitter
reproaches, and her eyes, persistently ironical, shining
with a flame of vulgar depravity were riveted on me.

It was only in public, in the glare of lights, under
the cross fire of men’s gazes that Juliette again found
her smile and expression of joy mixed with a little
wonderment and frankness which she reserved only
for this repugnant crowd of debauchées. And we used
to come to this cabaret accompanied by Gabrielle, by
Jesselin, by people met I don’t know where, and pre-
sented to us by I don’t know whom, by idiots and
princes, by the whole batch of international and street-
corner crooks whom we dragged along with us.

“What are you going to do tonight?”

“Tam going with the Mintié crowd.”

Jesselin gave us information about the people in the
place; he knew all the inside facts of high society life
and spoke of it with a sort of admiration in spite of
all the shameful or tragic details which he told us.

“That man there, who has a crowd of people around
him and who is listened to respectfully, used to be
a valet-de-chambre. His master fired him for theft.
But he became the keeper of a gambling house, con-
ducted all kinds of illegitimate joints, became cashier
of the Club, then skilfully disappeared for a few years.
At the present time he is part owner of many gambling
houses, has an interest in the race track, has unlimited
credit with the stock-brokers, owns horses and a man-
sion where he receives people. He used to loan money
secretly at one hundred percent interest to ladies in
financial straits whose gullible natures he would first

CALVARY 165

test. Ostentatiously generous, buying pictures of the
most expensive kind, he passes for an honorable man
and patron of the arts. In the papers they speak of
him with great respect.

“And that other big, stout fellow whose fleshy,
wrinkled face is eternally split by an idiotic laugh?
He is but a child! ... Hardly eighteen years old.
He has a mistress known to all, with whom he appears
in public every Monday at the Bois, and also has a
teacher, an Abbot whom he takes to the lake every
Tuesday in the same carriage. His mother has thus
conceived of the education of her son, wishing him to
lead a life of religious saintliness on the one hand and
of gallant adventures on the other. Aside from that
he gets drunk every evening, and horse-whips his old
fool of a mother. A real type!” Jesselin summed up.

“That duke over there, who bears one of the most
illustrious names in France! Ah! that swell duke! the
king of spongers! He comes in timidly like a fright-
ened dog, looks through his monocle, takes in the
smell of supper, sits down and devours some ham and
minced liver pie. Perhaps he has not dined yet, this
duke; undoubtedly he has just come back from an
unsuccessful daily visit to the café Anglais, or the
Maison Doré or Bignon’s, in quest of some friend who
will treat him to a meal. Being on very good terms
with women and horse dealers, he runs errands for
the former and rides the horses for the latter. In-
structed to say wherever he goes: ‘Oh! What a
charming woman!’... ‘Oh! what a _ wonderful
horse!’ he receives a few louis for this service with
which he pays his valet.

“Here is another great nobleman who is gradually
and hopelessly sinking into the mire of illicit business
and secret promotion of vice. Once upon a time that
fellow was quite the rage of society. Despite his

166 CALVARY

stoutness which is now evident, despite the puffiness
of his flesh, he still has an elegant way of carrying
himself, and the air of a gentleman. In the disreput-
able places and questionable circles which he frequents
he plays the remunerative réle which was played fifty
years ago by head waiters at table d’hdtes. His cour-
teousness and education were an asset to him, which
he made use of to perfection. He knew how to take
advantage of the dishonesty of others as well as of
his own, for no one was as skilful in composing matri-
monial difficulties of his patrons to the satisfaction
of all concerned as he was.

“That livid face there, set in a frame of whiskers
turning grey, that miniature mouth, that lustreless eye?
No one knows who he really is! For a long time sin-
ister rumors have been current about his person, ru-
mors of bloody affairs. At first people were afraid of
him and tried to keep away from him. It’s nothing
but an old memory after all! For the rest, he spends
a lot of money. What does it matter if a few drops
of blood do roll on top of piles of gold! Women are
crazy about it.

“That young handsome man with mustache grace-
fully turned up? One day when he did not have a sou
to his name, his parents having stopped his allowance,
the ingenious notion occurred to him to pretend that
he was repentant. He demonstratively quit an old
mistress he had and returned to his parents. A young
lady, his playmate when he was a child, adored him.
She was rich. He married her. But on the very eve-
ning of his wedding day he left her, taking the dowry
with him, and went back to his old mistress. She is
an excellent woman,” added Jesselin, “she really is!

“And all those pimps and those who have been
chased out of the clubs, expelled from universities,
ruined at the stock exchange; and foreigners coming

CALVARY 167

from the devil knows where, whom one scandal attracts
to one place and another scandal draws off to another,
and those living outside the pale of the law and
bourgeois esteem, who claim to be the royalty of
Paris, before whom everybody bows down — they all
swarm here, arrogant, free, disreputable!”

Juliette was listening, amused by the stories, at-
tracted by this filth and crime, flattered by this ignoble
homage which she felt the glances of these fools and
criminals were paying her. But she preserved her
modest bearing, her maiden charm, all her graces, self-
conscious and inviting at one and the same time, for
the sake of which, one day at Lirat’s, I earned damna-
tion!

Faces grow more pallid now, features become drawn
out. Fatigue swells and colors the eyelids. One after
another they leave the cabaret, tired and worried. Do
they know what the next day has in store for them,
what troubles await them, what disasters lie in ambush
for them? Once in a while the report of a pistol shot
creates a void in the ranks of this gang! Perhaps to-
morrow will be their turn? Tomorrow! Perhaps it
will be my turn, too? Ah! Tomorrow! The ever pres-
ent menace of tomorrow! And we go home again,
without saying a word to one another, sad and weary.

The boulevard was deserted. An immense silence
was weighing heavily over the city. Only the win-
dows of the brothel houses were aglare, like the eyes
of some huge beasts crouching in the depth of night.

Without knowing exactly the state of my financial
affairs, I felt that ruin was ahead of me. I had paid
out considerable sums of money, debts were accumu-
lating and, far from decreasing, Juliette’s whims be-
came even more numerous and more expensive: money
flowed like water from her hands, like a fountain, in one
continuous stream. “She evidently thinks me richer

168 CALVARY

than I am,” I thought to myself, in an effort to deceive
myself. “I ought to warn her, perhaps show myself
a little more reserved in yielding to her desires.” The
truth was that I deliberately dismissed from my mind
every notion of this kind, that I dreaded the probable
consequences of such a challenge even more than the
greatest possible misfortune in the world.

In my rare moments of clear-mindedness, of frank-
ness with myself, I understood that beneath her air
of sweetness, beneath her naiveté of a spoiled child,
beneath the robust and vibrant passions of her flesh
Juliette concealed a powerful desire to be always beau-
tiful, adored, paid court to, concealed a fierce selfish-
ness which would not flinch before any cruelty, be-
fore any moral crime! ...I realized that she loved
me less than the last piece of cloth, that she would
have sacrificed me for a cloak or a cravat or a pair of
gloves. ... Once drawn into such a life she could
not stop.... And then what?... Cold shivers
passed up and down my frame from head to heels. . .
That she should leave me, no, no, that I did not want!

The most painful moment to me was in the morning
when I woke up. With eyes closed, pulling the cover
over my head, my body huddled up into a ball, I used
to ponder over my situation with terrible anguish.
And the more faulty she appeared to me, the more
desperately I clung to Juliette. No matter how often
I said to myself that my money would soon be gone,
that the credit on which I could dishonestly prolong
the agony of hope against hope for another week or
two, would eventually be denied to me; I clung to
the present and rabidly evolved all sorts of impossible
plans. I pictured myself accomplishing superhuman
tasks in the course of one week. I dreamed of finding
millions in some hackney coach, Fabulous inheritances

CALVARY 169

dropped down from the skies for me. The idea of
stealing haunted me....

Gradually all these insane notions took hold of my
distracted mind. I was presenting Juliette with pal-
aces and castles; I overwhelmed her with diamonds
and pearls; gold streamed and glittered all around
her, and I raised her high above the earth, upon dizzy,
royal heights. Then the sense of reality would sud-
denly return. I buried myself deeper in the bed. I
sought realms of non-existence in whose depth I could
disappear. I forced myself to sleep. And suddenly,
out of breath, with sweat on my forehead and a
haggard look in my eyes, I would snuggle up to Juliette,
press her in my arms with all my strength, sobbing:

“You'll never leave me, will you, my Juliette! Tell
me, tell me that you’ll never leave me. Because, you
see... . I'll die. . . if you do—T'll go crazy. I'll kill
myself! Juliette,-I swear to you that I'll kill my-
self!”

“Why, what has come over you? Why do you
tremble so? No, my dear, I’ll never leave you. Are
we not happy together? Besides, I love you so much!
When you are nice as you are now!”

“Yes, yes! [ll kill myself! [’ll kill myself!”

“You are so funny, my dear! Why do you tell me
that?”

“ Because.”

I was going to tell her everything. .. . But I had
not the courage. And I said:

“Because I love you! Because I don’t want you
to leave me! Because I don’t want to.”

Nevertheless I finally had to bring this matter to a
head. Juliette had seen in the window of a jewelry
store on the Rue de la Paix, a string of pearls of which
she spoke without end. One day when we were in
that neighborhood:

170 CALVARY

“ Let’s go and see that beautiful jewel,” she said to
me.

With her nose pressed against the window pane and
eyes shining, she looked at the string arranged in a
triple circular row of pink pearls upon the velvet of
the jewel case. I saw a tremor passing up and down
her skin.

“Tsn’t that beautiful? And it isn’t expensive at all!
I have asked about the price... fifty thousand
francs. ... That’s an exceptional bargain.”

I tried to draw her further on. But coaxingly,
hanging on my arm, she held me back. And she sighed:

“ Ah, how nice that would look on the neck of your
little wifie!”

She added with an air of profound grief:

“ Really! All the women have lots of jewels. Only
I have none. If you were really nice, really kind to
me, you would give them to your poor little Juliette.
... There now!”

I stammered out:

“Certainly. I want to—very much... but later

. next week!”

Juliette’s face grew dark:

“Why next week? Can’t you do it now, right now!”

“Well you see... now. ..I am short of money.

.. Lama little hard up.”

“What? Already? You haven’t got a sou? Is that
a fact? Where did all your money go? Yiou have not
a sou left?”

“Why yes, I have! Only I am a little short of cash
temporarily.”

“Well if that’s the case it doesn’t matter. I have
also made inquiries about the terms. They would
agree to accept promissory notes. Five notes of six
thousand francs each. That is not such a mighty
matter!”

CALVARY 171

“Undoubtedly. But a little later! I promise you.
Is that all right?”

“Ah!” Juliette said simply.

I looked at her, the wrinkle on her forehead terrified
me; I saw a hidden glimmer flare up in her eyes, and
in the space of a second a world of extraordinary
sensations hitherto unknown to me, took hold of me.
Very clearly, with perfect understanding, with cruel
indifference, with a startling conciseness of judgment
I put the following question to myself: “ Juliette and
dishonor; Juliette and prison?” I did not hesitate.

“ Let’s go in,” I said.

She took the string of pearls away with her.

In the evening, wearing her pearls, she sat down
on my lap, radiant, with her arms closed around my
neck. She sat so for a long time, lulling me with her
sweet voice.

“ Ah, my poor sweetie,” she said, “ I am not always
sensible! Yes, I realize. I am a little foolish some-
times. But I am through now! I want to be a good,
a serious-minded woman. And you shall work un-
disturbed, you'll write a good novel—a nice play.
Then we shall be rich, very rich. And then if you
should happen to be very much short of money we could
sell this beautiful string of pearls! Because jewels
are not like dresses, they are just as good as money.
Press me in your arms strongly.”

Ah! how fast that night was gone! How the hours
sped by, no doubt frightened to hear love shrieking
with a horrible voice of one who is damned.

Disasters followed one another and soon reached
their climax. The promissory notes that I had given
Juliette’s jeweler remained unpaid. I had a hard time
borrowing enough money to satisfy our everyday
needs. My father had left some uncollected debts at
Saint-Michel. Generous and kind-hearted, he liked

172 CALVARY

to help out small farmers in a pinch. Pitilessly I
started the process servers after these poor devils,
causing them to sell their hovels, their piece of land,
the things with the aid of which they made a miser-
able living, depriving themselves of everything. In
the shops where I still had credit I bought things
which I immediately resold at a very low price. I
stooped to putting through the most questionable
deals. My brains teemed with original plans of black-
mail, and I tired Jesselin with my endless requests of
money. Finally one day I went to see Lirat. I needed
five hundred francs that evening, and I went to Lirat,
deliberately, boldly! In his presence, however, in that
studio full of painful memories, my self-assurance
deserted me and I felt a sense of belated shame. I was
with Lirat a quarter of an hour, without venturing
to explain to him the thing that I expected of his
friendship. . . . Of his friendship! . . . At last I made
up my mind to go.

“Well, good bye, Lirat!”

“ Good bye, my friend.”

“Ah! I forgot. Could you lend me five hundred
francs? I am expecting my farm rents. They are
overdue.”

And I added rapidly:

“Tl give them back to you tomorrow — tomorrow
morning.”

Lirat fixed his glance on me for a moment. I can
still see that glance. It was truly sorrowful.

“Five hundred francs!” he said. ‘“ Where in the
devil do you expect me to get them? Have I ever
had five hundred francs?”

I insisted, repeating:

“T’ll give them back to you tomorrow. . . tomorrow
morning.”

“But I haven’t got them, my poor Mintié. I have

CALVARY 173

only two hundred francs left. Would that do you
any good?”

I was thinking that these two hundred francs which
he offered meant to him a whole month’s subsistence.
I answered with a bleeding heart:

“ Well, all right! All the same! I’ll give them back
to you tomorrow. . . tomorrow morning.”

“ That is all right!”

At that moment I would have wished to throw my-
self on Lirat’s neck, to beg his pardon, to shout: “ No,
no I don’t want this money!” And like a thief I took
it away with me.

CHAPTER VII

VM properties, the Priory itself, the old familiar

house mortgaged several times, were sold!
... Ah! the sad journey which I made on
that occasion! ...It was a long time since I had
been to Saint-Michel! And yet in my hours of disgust
and weariness, in the evil excitement of Paris, the
thought of this peaceful little place was sweet and
calming. The pure wafts of air which came to me from
there had a refreshing effect upon my congested brains,
they soothed my heart burned by the corrosive acids
which are carried along by the infected air of cities,
and I often promised myself that whenever I got tired
of always chasing dreams, I would seek refuge there
amid the peace and serenity of native objects... .
Saint-Michel! ... Never was the place so dear to
me as after I had left it; it seemed to me that it con-
tained riches and beauty such as I had never known
how to enjoy and which I now suddenly discovered...
I loved to direct my memories there, best of all I
loved to recall the forest, the beautiful forest where, as
a restless, dreamy child, I had lost my way so many
times. . . . Inhaling with keen delight the aroma of
the rich sap of trees, the ear enchanted by the har-
monies of the wind which caused the underwood and
forest trees to vibrate like harps and violin cellos, I
lost myself in the large alleys overhung with trembling
foliage, large, straight alleys which far, far away ended
abruptly and opened up like a church bay upon the
light of a pane of sky, arched and luminous... .
In these dreams I saw the branches of oak trees
reach out their foliage greener than ever, happy to

CALVARY 175

find me again; young staddles greeted me with a
joyous rustle as I passed by; they seemed to say to
me: “ Look how big we grew, how smooth and strong
our trunks are, how good the air in which we spread
out our slender, swaying boughs, how bountiful the
soil in which we sink our roots always full of life —
giving sap.” The moss and peat mould called me:
“We have prepared a nice bed for you, little fellow,
a nice fragrant little bed such as you won’t find in
the miserably gilded houses of the big cities. ...
Stretch yourself out, roll on it if you are too warm,
the fern will sway its gentle fans over your head,
the beech trees will spread their branches open to
let through a sunbeam which will gladden your heart.”
Alas! ever since I fell in love with Juliette — these
voices have gradually become silent. These memories
no longer came back like guardian angels to lull me
to sleep and to gently stir their white wings in the
agitated azure of my dreams! ... My past had be-
come estranged from me, ashamed of me!...

The train sped on; it had cleared the plains of
Beauce, even more melancholy to look at than in the
grim days of the war. . . . And I recognized the small,
humpy fields, their hedges of brushwood, the scattered
apple trees, the narrow valleys, the poplars with their
tops bent in the shape of hoods, which in the fields
resembled a strange procession of blue penitents, the
farms with high mossgrown roofs, highways deep cut
and rough, bordered with girdled trees, which slanted
down in the midst of sturdy verdure, the woods down
yonder, black against the setting sun....It was
getting dark when I arrived at Saint-Michel. I liked
it better so. . . . To cross the streets in full daylight,
under the gaze of all these excellent people who had
known me asa child, would have been too painful for
me. ... It seemed to me that I was laden with so

176 CALVARY

much shame that they would turn away from me with
horror as from a mangy dog....I1 quickened my
pace, rolling up the collar of my overcoat.... The
grocery owner, named Madame Henriette, who in the
past used to stuff me with cake, was standing in front
of her store and talking to her neighbors. ... I was
afraid they might be talking about me and, leaving the
sidewalk I took to the roadway. ... Fortunately a
cart passed by, the noise of which drowned the words
of these women: The Presbytery. . . the Convent of
the Sisters... the church... the Priory!... At
this hour the Priory was nothing but a huge black
mass in the sky. ... My heart failed me... . I had
to lean against one of the posts of the gate to catch
my breath.... A few steps away the forest mur-
mured, its dull voice growing in amplitude, angry, like
the raging roar of breakers... .

Marie and Felix were waiting for me. ... Marie
older and more wrinkled, Felix, more stooping and
shaking his head more than ever... .

“Ah! Monsieur Jean! ... Monsieur Jean! .. .”
And forthwith taking possession of my valise, Marie
said:

“You ought to be pretty hungry by this time,
Monsieur Jean! ... I have some soup for you, the
kind you used to like, and then I have put a nice
chicken on the spit.”

“Thank you!” I said. “I shall not dine.”

I would have liked to embrace both of them, to
open my arms for them, to cry upon their old, parched
faces. . . And instead! my voice was harsh, trenchant.
I uttered “I shall not dine ” in the manner of a threat.
They looked at me somewhat frightened, but never
stopped repeating:

“Ah! Monsieur Jean! ... It has been such a long

CALVARY 177

time! ... Ah! Monsieur Jean! ... What a hand-
some young man you are!.. .”

Then Marie, thinking that she would gain my in-
terest thereby, began telling me the news of the place:

“That poor Monsieur the curé is dead, you know.
The new one in his place don’t seem to be getting
ahead at all, he is too young and anxious. . . . Bap-
tiste has been crushed to death by a tree.”

I interrupted her:

“All right, all right, Marie. . . . You'll tell me about
it tomorrow.”

She took me to my bedroom and asked:

“ Shall I bring you a bowl of milk, Monsieur Jean?”

“Tf you please!”

And closing the door, I flung myself on the lounge
and sobbed for a long, long time.

The next day I got up at dawn. . . . The Priory had
not changed much: there was only more grass in the
alleys, more moss on the steps, and a few trees were
dead. Again I saw the gate, the scurfy lawn, the puny
looking sorbs, the aged chestnut trees. Again I saw
the basin where the little kitten had been shot, the
curtain of fir trees which hid the commons from view,
the abandoned study; I saw the park, its twisted trees
and stone benches that looked like ancient tombs. .. .
In the kitchen garden Felix was digging a border bed
for flowers. ... Ah! poor man, how battered his
frame was!

He showed me a hawthorn and said:

“That is where you used to come with your poor
deceased father to lie in wait for the blackbirds. . . .
Do you remember, Monsieur Jean?”

“Yes, yes, Felix!”

“ And also the thrush?”

“Yes, yes, Felix!”

I walked away. I could not bear the sight of this

178 CALVARY

old man any longer, this man who thought he was

going to live to the end of his days at the Priory and

whom I was about to drive out. . . and where was

he to go? . . . He had served us faithfully, he was al-

most one of our family, poor, unable to gain a liveli-

hood otherwise. And I was going to chase him out!
. Ah! How could I bring myself to do that?

At breakfast Marie seemed nervous. She walked
around my chair, unusually excited.

“Beg pardon!” she said to me at last, “I must
clear up all my doubts about this matter... . Is it
true that you are selling the Priory? .. .”

“Yes, Marie.”

The old woman opened wide her eyes, stupefied,
and, placing her hands on the table, repeated:

“You are selling the Priory?”

“Yes, Marie.”

“The Priory where all your-family was born? ...
The Priory where your father and your mother died?

. The Priory, Holy Jesus!”

ys ‘Yes, Marie.”

She recoiled as if frightened.

“Then you are a wicked son, Monsieur Jean!”

I made no reply. Marie left the dining room and
did not speak to me any more.

Two days later, my business having been attended
to, the deed signed, I left. .. . My money was hardly
enough to last me a month. . . . I was done for! Over-
whelming debts, ignoble debts was all that was left
to me! ... Ah! if the train could only carry me on
and on, always further on, never to arrive anywhere!

. It was only in Paris that I reminded myself that
I had not even gone to kneel down at the grave of
my father and mother.

Juliette received me tenderly. She embraced me
passionately.

CALVARY 179

“Ah! dear, dear! ... I thought you would hever
come back! . . . Five days, just think of it! .. . Next
time if you have to go again I want to go with you.”

She appeared so affectionate, so truly moved, her
caresses gave me such confidence, and then the burden
on my soul was so heavy, that I did not hesitate to
tell her everything. I took her in my arms and put
her on my lap.

“Listen to me, my Juliette,” I said to her, ‘listen
to me!...I am lost... ruined. .. ruined. . . do
you hear, ruined! ... We have only four thousand
francs left! .. .”

“Poor boy!” Juliette sighed while placing her head
on my shoulder, “poor boy! .. .”

I burst out sobbing, and cried out:

“You understand now that I must leave you... .
And I am going to die if I do!”

“Come now, you are silly to talk that way. ...
Do you believe I could live without you, my dear?...
Come now, don’t cry, don’t grieve so much... .”

She dried the tears from my eyes and continued in
her voice which grew sweeter with every word.

“First of all we have four thousand francs... .
We can live four months on that. . . . During these
four months you'll work. . . . Let us see if you can’t
write a good novel in four months! . . . But don’t cry,
because if you cry, I won’t tell you a great secret. . .
a great, great secret... . Do you know what your
little wifie did, who little suspected that herself — do
you know? ... Well, for three days she went to the
riding school, she took lessons in horsemanship — and
next year when she is well trained, Franconi will
engage her... . Do you know what.a woman rider
in a fashionable riding school makes. . . . Two thou-
sand, three thousand francs a month! ... You see

180 CALVARY

now, there isn’t much to grieve over, my poor little
boy!”

All nonsense, all folly seemed logical to me. I clung
to it desperately as a shipwrecked sailor clings to the
insecure wreckage tossed by the waves. Provided it
kept me afloat for an instant, I did not care toward
what dangerous reefs, toward what blacker depths it
swept me on. I also cleaved to that absurd hope of
one doomed to perish, which even on the slaughter
stake, which even under the knife, still expects the
impossible to happen: a sudden change, an earthly
catastrophe which will deliver him from death. I per-
mitted myself to be deluded by the pretty purring of
Juliette’s words! A firm resolve to work heroically
filled my spirit and threw me into raptures. . . . I had
visions of multitudes of people bending breathlessly
over my books, of theatres where grave and painted
men were coming forward and uttering my name to
the boundless enthusiasm of the audience. Overcome
with fatigue, worn out with emotion, I fell asleep.

We finished dinner. Juliette was even more affec-
tionate than at the time when I came back. Neverthe-
less, I noticed a sort of uneasiness, a preoccupied air in
her. She was sad and gay at one and the same time:
What was going on behind this forehead over which
clouds were passing? Did she decide to leave me, in
spite of all her protestations, and did she want to make
our separation easier by lavishing on me all the treas-
ures of her caresses?

“How annoying, my dear!” she said, “I have to
go out.”

“What do you mean, you have to go out? Now?”

“Why yes, just think of it. That poor Gabrielle is
very ill. She is alone —I have promised to come to
see her! Oh! but I won’t stay very long. .. . About
an hour... .”

CALVARY 181

Juliette spoke very naturally. But I don’t know
why, it seemed to me that she was lying, that she was
not going to Gabrielle at all. And suspicion, vague,
terrifying suspicion pierced my heart. I said to her:

“Can’t you wait till tomorrow?”

“Oh, that’s impossible! Don’t you understand, I
have promised.”

“ Please, do me a favor! Go tomorrow. ...

“ That’s impossible! Poor Gabrielle!”

“All right! ... Vl go with you. ... I'll wait for
you at the door! .. .”

Cunningly I studied her. . . . Her face was motion-
less... . No, really her muscles did not betray the
least surprise. She answered gently:

“There is no sense in that! ... Youare tired....
Go to bed! .. .”

And forthwith I saw the train of her gown stream
behind the drawn door curtain like a snake... .
Juliette is in her dressing room. ... And with eyes
fixed upon the table cloth where the red reflection of a
bottle of wine is flitting, I recall that recently some
women came to this house, fleshly squint-eyed women,
women who had the air of dogs scenting ordure. ...
I remember I had asked Juliette who those women
were. One time Juliette answered: “ That’s the corset
maker.” Another time she said: “That’s the em-
broiderer.” And I believed her! One day I picked up
on the carpet a visiting card which read. . . . Madame
Rabineau, 114 Rue de Séze. “ Who was this Mme.
Rabineau?” Juliette answered: “ That’s nothing. . .
give it here....” And she tore the card up....
And fool that I was, I did not even go to the Rue de
Séze to find out! ... I recall all that... . Ah! how
could I ever fail to understand? ... Why didn’t I
seize them by the neck, these vile dealers in human
flesh? ...

”

182 CALVARY

And suddenly a great veil is lifted from my eyes,
behind it I see Juliette with defiled body, exhausted
and hideous, selling herself to human vultures! ...
Juliette is there, putting on her gloves, in front of me,
in a dark dress with a thick veil which hides her fea-
tures. .. . The shadow of her hand dances upon the
table cloth, lengthens out, grows broader, shrinks
again, disappears and comes back again. . . . I shall
always see this diabolic shadow, always! ...

“ Kiss me, dearie!”

“Don’t go out Juliette, don’t go out, I implore

you!”
“Embrace me. . . closer. . . closer yet. . . .”
She is sad. . . . Through the thick veil I feel on my

cheek the moisture of a tear.
“Why do you cry, Juliette... . Juliette, for pity’s
sake, stay with me!”

“Embrace me. ...I adore you, my Jean.... I
adore you! .. .”

She is gone. . . . Doors open, close again. . . . She
is gone. . . . Outside I hear the noise of a rolling car-
riage. The noise grows fainter and fainter and dies
gut. 2.4 She jis-gone lou...

And here I, too, am on the street. . . . A cab passes
by — 114, Rue de Séze!

My mind was made up quickly. .. . I figured that

I would come there before she could. ... She per-
fectly understood that I was not taken in by that story
of Gabrielle’s illness. ... My anxiety, my eagerness
no doubt inspired her with the fear of being spied
after, followed, and most likely she would not go to
the place immediately. But why did just this abomin-
able thought flash through my mind like lightning?...
Why only this possibility and no other? ... I still
hope that my presentiments have deceived me, that

CALVARY 183

Madame Rabineau “is nothing,’ that Gabrielle is
really sick!

Some kind of a small hotel hedged in between two
tall buildings, a narrow door hollowed out in the wall
at the end of three steps; a dark fagade, whose closed
windows let no light penetrate. . .. It’s here! ... It
is here she is going to come, where she already came
perhaps! ... Rage drives me toward this door....
I should like to set this house on fire; I should like
to make all those detestable ladies hidden there shriek
and writhe in agony, in some hellish blaze. . . . Pres-
ently a woman enters, singing and swaying her body,
her hands in the pockets of her light jacket. . . . Why
did not I spit in her face? . . . An old man has come
out of his coupé. He passed close to me, snorting,
panting, supported under his arm by his valet... .
His trembling feet are unable to carry him, between
his flabby, swollen eyelids there glimmers a light of
beastly dissipation. ... Why did I not slash the
hideous face of this profligate old faun? ... Perhaps
he is waiting for Juliette! . . . The door of the Inferno
opened before him—and for an instant my eyes
plunged into the pits of hell. ...I1 thought I saw
red flames, smoke, abominable embraces, the tumbling
down of creatures horribly twisted together. . . . But
no, it is only a gloomy deserted hallway, lit by the
pale shine of a lamp; then at the end of it there is
something black like a dark hole, where one feels im-
pure things are stirring. . . . And carriages are stop-
ping in front of the building, dumping out their haul
of human dung into this sink of love. . . . A little girl
barely ten years old follows me: “ Nice violets! Nice
violets!”. ..I give her a gold piece. “Go away
from here, little one, go away! .. . Don’t stay here.
They will get you! .. .”

My mind is over-exerted. A thousand-toothed sor-

184 CALVARY

row gnaws at my heart, a thousand claws sink into it,
tears it to pieces in a frenzy of grief. . . . A desire to
kill is kindled in me and makes my arms go through
murderous motions. ... Ah, to rush, whip in hand,
into the midst of this lustful crowd and lash their
bodies until ineffaceable marks are left on them, cause
their warm blood to spurt, and scatter pieces of their
living flesh all over the mirrors, carpets, beds! ...
And nail that Rabineau woman to the door of this
house of ill-fame, like an owl on the doors of farm
barns, nail her stripped, disemboweled, with her vitals
out! ...A hackney coach has stopped: a woman
steps out. I recognize the hat, the veil, the dress.

“ Juliette!”

On seeing me, she utters a cry.... But she re-
gains her composure quickly. .. . Her eyes defy me.

“ Leave me alone,” she cries out to me. “ What are
you doing here? . . . Leave me alone!”

I almost crush her wrists, and in a suffocating voice
which rattles:

“Listen now. ... If you make another step. ...
if you say another word. . . I’ll knock you dead right
here — on this sidewalk, and tramp you to death under
my feet.”

With a heavy blow I strike her in the face and with
my nails I furiously claw her forehead and cheeks from
which blood is gushing.

“Jean! Oh! Jean! ... Have mercy, please! ...
Jean, mercy; Mercy! ... Have pity on me!... You
are killing me... .”

Rudely I drag her toward the carriage. . . and we
get in... . Huddled up in two, she sits there right
close to me, sobbing. ... What am I going to do
now? ...I1 don’t know. ... In truth I don’t know.

I don’t ask myself any questions. I don’t think of any-
thing. ... It seems as though a mountain of stone

CALVARY 185

has descended upon me... . I feel the heavy rocks
on which my neck has crashed, against which my flesh
has been bruised. . . . Why, with all the black des-
pair in which I find myself, do these high walls rise
up towards heaven? Why these dismal birds flying
about in unexpected sunshine? . . . Why is this thing
crouched down beside me crying?... Why?...
I don’t know. ...

I am going to kill her. . . . She is in her bedroom
without lights, in bed. . . . Iam in the dressing room
pacing up and down. . . I am walking back and forth
with constrained breath, my head on fire, with clinched
fists eager to inflict punishment. ...I am going to
kill her! . . . From time to time I stop near the door
and listen. .. . She is crying. ... And in a minute
I will enter... .I will enter and pull her off the
bed, drag her by the hair, knock her senseless, break
her neck against the marble edges of the fireplace. .. .
I want the room to be red with her blood. . . . I want
to see her body beaten into lumps of battered flesh
which I shall throw out with the rest of the rubbish
and which the garbage man will take away tomorrow.
... Cry, cry!...In a minute you'll howl, my
dearest! ... Haven’t I been stupid! ... To think
of everything but that! . . . To fear everything except
that! .. . To say to myself: “she will leave me” and
never, never: “she will deceive me. ...” To have
failed to divine the nature of this den, this old man,
all this filth! ... Really I had never thought of it
before, blind fool that I was. She must have laughed
when I implored her not to leave me! .. . To leave
me. ... Ah! yes, to leave me! . . . She did not want
to, of course. . . . Now I understand it. . . . I inspired
her neither with probity of heart nor with decency
of conduct; I was to her just a label, a trade mark. . .
a mark of superior value! ... Yes, when they saw

186 CALVARY

her in my arms and therefore priced her more highly,
she could sell herself for much more than she would
have received if, like a nocturnal ghoul, she had
roamed the sidewalks and haunted the obscene
shadows of the streets. ... She had swallowed my
fortune in one gulp. ... Her lips had rendered my
mentality sterile at the first touch Now she is
gambling with my honor, that is consistent. . . . With
my honor! . . . How could she know that I had none
left? . 3.

But am I really going to kill her? . . . When one
is dead, everything is forgotten! . . . One bares one’s
head before the coffin of a criminal, one bows in sadness

before the dead body of a prostitute....In the
churches, believers kneel down and pray for those who
have suffered, for those who have sinned. ... At the

cemeteries reverence watches over the graves and the
cross protects them. . . . To die is to be forgiven! . .
Yes, death is beautiful, holy, noble! . . . Death is the
beginning of the great eternal light. . . . Ah, to die!
. . . to stretch oneself out on a mattress softer than
the softest most in birds’ nests. . . . To think no more
. .. To hear the noise of life no longer! . . . To feel
the infinite sweetness of nothingness! ...To be a
soul! ...

I shall not kill her. . . . I shall not kill her because
she has to suffer... terribly, always. ... Let her
suffer in all her beauty, in all her pride, in her exposed
carnality of a prostitute! ... I shall not kill her, but
I shall disfigure her to such an extent, I shall make
her look so repulsive that people, frightened, will flee
at the sight of her... . And every evening I shall
compel her to appear on the streets, at the theatre,
everywhere with her nose crushed, her eyes bulging
out from under eyelids fringed with black rings, with-
out a veil! ...

CALVARY 187

Suddenly sobs from my throat... . I fling myself
on the couch, biting the cushion, and cry andcry!...
Minutes, hours pass and I am still crying! .. . Ah!
Juliette, vile Juliette! ... Why did you do that? ...
Why? ... Could you not say to me: “Here now, you
are not rich any more and all I want of you is money.
. . . Leave me!” That would have been cruel, it might
have meant my death. ... But what of it?...It
would have been better. ... How can I look into
your face now? . .. How can our mouths ever touch
each other? ... There is now between us the thick
wall of that wicked place! ... Ah! Juliette! ...
Wretched Juliette! ...

I remember her going out. ... I recollect every-

thing! . . . I recall how she was dressed in her gray
dress, the shadow of her hand dancing strangely on
the back of her neck. . . . I see her as clearly as if

she were before me now, and even more so. .. . She
was sad, she was crying. ...I am sure it was not
mere imagination on my part... she was actually
crying, for my cheek was wet with her tears! Whom
was she crying over, me or herself? Ah! .. who
knows? ...I1 remember. ... I said to her: “ Don’t
go out, my Juliette! .. .” She replied: “ Embrace me
closely, very closely, more closely yet! .. .” And her
caresses had the passion of despair in them, a kind of
shrivelling grip, a sort of fear as if she had wanted
to cling to me, to seek tremblingly protection in my
arms. . . . I can see her eyes, her beseeching look. . .
They seemed to implore me: “ Something abominable
is drawing me on. .. . Hold me back! . . . lamclose
to your heart. . . do not let me go! . . . And instead
of taking her in my arms, carrying her away, hiding
her and loving her so as to make her giddy with hap-
piness, I opened up my arms and let her go! . . . She
sought refuge in my love, and I denied it to her. . .

188 CALVARY

She cried to me: “I adore you, I adore you!...’
And I stood there like a fool, amazed as is a child
at the unexpected flapping of the wings of a captive
bird that has just escaped. . . . I did not understand
that sadness, those tears, those caresses, those words
more tender than usual, that trembling. . . . It is only
now that I hear those silent, melancholy words: “ My
dear Jean, I am a poor little woman, a little foolish

and so weak! ... I had no idea of anything big or
worth while. . .. Who was there to teach me what
chastity, duty, virtue meant! . . . When I was a child

yet, evil surroundings contaminated me, and vice was
taught to me by the very people who were supposed to
be my guardians. .. Still I am not wicked and I
love you. ...I1 love you more than I ever loved
you! ... My beloved Jean, you are strong, you know
many beautiful things which I don’t... . Well, pro-
tect me!... An overpowering desire draws me
there. ... The trouble is I have seen too much
jewelry, too many gowns and other exquisite and ex-
pensive trifles which you can’t buy me any longer but
which others have promised to get me! . . . I have an
instinctive feeling that it’s wrong and that it will
cause you suffering. . . . Well, subdue me! .. . I ask
for no other chance than to be good and virtuous. .. .
Teach me how! ... Beat me... . if I resist! .. .”
Poor Juliette! . . . It seems to me that she is down
on her knees before me, with clasped hands. ...
Tears are rolling from her eyes, from her big eyes
downcast and sweet. . . . Tears are streaming from her
eyes endlessly as they used to stream from the eyes
of my mother in the past. ... And at the thought
that I wanted to kill her, that I wanted to disfigure
her delightful and sorrowful face through horrible
mutilation, I am seized with remorse and my wrath
gives way to pity.... She goes on.... “Forgive

CALVARY 189

me! ... Oh! my Jean you must forgive me... . It
is not my fault, I assure you. .. . Try to recall... .
Did you ever warn me, even once? .. . Did you ever

show me even once the way which I should follow?
Through weakness, through fear of losing me, through
excessive and criminal kindness, you have yielded to
all my whims, even the most wicked ones. . . . How
could I know that it was wrong, when you have never
told me anything? ... Instead of stopping me on
the brink of the precipice where I was headed, you
yourself have pushed me into it... . What example
have you placed before my eyes? ... Whither have
you led me? . . . Have you ever tried to take me out
of this alarming atmosphere of debauchery? .. . Why
didn’t you chase Jesselin or Gabrielle out of our house,
all those degenerates whose very presence only helped
to increase my wickedness? ... To breathe into me
a particle of your own soul, to send a ray of light
into the darkness of my brains—that is what you

should have done! ... Yes, you should have given
me another life, you should have made me over
again! ...Iam guilty, my Jean! ...And I am so

ashamed of myself that I can never hope_to be able
to atone for the infamy of this evil hour even with a
whole life of sacrifice and repentance. . .. But you!
. .. Is your conscience satisfied that you have done
your duty? ... I dread not the expiation of my sins.
. . . On the contrary I welcome it, I want it... . But
you? ... Can you sit in judgment over a crime which
‘I admit I have committed, but in which you, too, have
had a part since you have not done anything to pre-
vent it! . . . My dear beloved, listen to me. . . . This
body which I have attempted to defile horrifies you;
hereafter you will not be able to look at it without
rage and anguish. . . . All right then, let it perish! ...
Let it rot in the oblivion of a graveyard! . . . There

190 CALVARY
shall be left to you my soul, it belongs to you, for it

has never forsaken you, for it loves you. . . . See how
white and pure it is... .”

A knife glistens in Juliette’s hands. . . . She is going
to kill herself with it. . . . I grasp her arms, I shout:
“No, no, Juliette, no, I don’t want you to! ... I love
you! ...No, no. ... I don’t want you to!”

My arms are brought together in an embrace, but I
enclose nothing but space....I look around me,
frightened, the place is empty! ... I look again... .
The gas is burning with a yellow flame over the
dressing table. . . rumpled skirts are strewn all over
the carpet... shoes lie scattered about.... And
pale daylight is stealing into the room through the
open spaces in the shutters. ...I1 begin to fear in
earnest that Juliette may kill herself, for otherwise
why should this vision arise before me? . . . On tip-
toe, quietly I walk toward the door and listen. ...A
feeble sigh reaches my ear, then a wailing, then a sob.
. . . And like a fool I rush into the room. . . . A voice
speaks to me in the darkness, the voice of Juliette:

“ Ah! my Jean! My dear little Jean!”

And chastely, as Christ kissed Magdalene, I kissed
her on the forehead.

CHAPTER VIII

x IRAT! Ah, at last it is you! For a week I have
( been looking for you, have been writing to
you, have been calling you, have been wait-
ing for you... . Lirat, my dear Lirat, save me!”

“What? My God! What’s wrong?”

“T want to kill myself.”

“ Kill yourself! Well, that’s an old story. Come,
there is no danger.”

“JT want to kill myself! I want to kill myself! .. .”

Lirat looked at me, blinked his eyes and paced up
and down the study with long strides.

“My poor Mintié!” he said, “if you were a states-
man, a stockbroker or. ... Well, I don’t know...
say a grocer, an art critic, or a journalist, I would say
to you: ‘ You are unhappy and you have had enough
of life, my boy! Go ahead, kill yourself!’ And with
these words I would leave you. But here you have
that rare opportunity of being an artist, you possess
that divine gift of seeing, understanding, feeling things
which others can’t see, can’t understand and can’t feel!
There are harmonies in nature which exist only for
you and which others will never hear. . . you have
all the real joys of life, the only joys, the noble, grand
and pure ones, the joys which make you forget men
and which render you almost Godlike. And because
some woman has deceived you, you want to renounce
all that? She has deceived you; it is evident that she
has deceived you. . . . Well, what else did you expect
her to do? And what concern is it of yours, even if
she has? .. .”

“ Please don’t jeer at me. You don’t know anything,

192 CALVARY

Lirat. You don’t suspect anything. I am lost, dis-
honored!”

“ Dishonored, my friend? Are you sure of it? Do
you have unclean debts? You'll pay them off!”

“Tt is not a question of that! I am dishonored!
dishonored, do you understand? It has been four
months since I have given Juliette any money...
four months! And here I live, I eat, have my amuse-
ments. Every evening. .. before dinner. . . late at
night. . . . Juliette re-enters the house. She is worn-
out, pale, her hair disheveled. From what dens, what
alcoves, what arms is she returning? Upon what
pillows has her head reclined! Sometimes I see pieces
of bed clothes insolently hanging on the top of her
hair. . . . She no longer feels ashamed of it, she does
not even take the trouble to lie about it. . . one might
think it had been arranged between us. She un-
dresses, and I believe she takes a perverse delight
in showing me her ill-fastened skirts, her unlaced cor-
set, all the disorder of her rumpled clothes, of her
loosened garments which come off, falling to the
ground about her, and lie conspicuously on the floor,
filling the bedroom with the breath of other people!

“T tremble with rage and want to sink my teeth
into her body; my wrath is kindled to a frenzy and
boils within me—TI feel like killing her. And I say
nothing! Often I even come up to her to embrace
her. . . but she pushes me away: ‘ No, leave me alone,
I am tired!’ At first, when this abominable life started,
I used to beat her. . . for you must know, Lirat, there
isn’t a disgraceful act that I have not committed. I have
exhausted every form of indecency — yes, I beat her!
She bent her back. . . and hardly uttered a complaint.
One evening I seized her by the throat, I threw her to
the ground. Oh! I had quite made up my mind to finish
her. While I was strangling her, I turned my head

CALVARY 193

away for fear that I might be moved to pity, fixed
my gaze upon a flower design on the carpet, and in or-
der to hear nothing, neither her wailing nor rattling, I
shrieked out inarticulate words, like a possessed one.
How long did it last? Soon she ceased struggling. . .

her muscles relaxed....I1 felt her vitality giving
out under my fingers. . . a few more convulsions. . .
and that was the end. . . She did not stir any more.

And suddenly I saw her black-blue face, her contracted
eyes, her mouth, large and wide open, her rigid body,
her motionless arms. And like a madman I rushed
into every room of the apartment, calling the servants:
“Help, help, I have killed Madame! I have killed
Madame! ”

“T fled, tumbling down the stairway, without a hat,
dashed into the caretakers: ‘Go upstairs quickly, I
have killed Madame!’ Then I darted out on the street,
in a frenzy. The whole night I was running without
knowing whither, rushing along the boulevards, cross-
ing bridges, dashing against benches in the parks and
mechanically turning back toward the house. It seemed
to me that through its closed shutters there penetrated
the light of wax tapers; priests’ vestments, surplices,
eucharists passed before me in confusion; it seemed
to me that I could hear funeral chants, the rumble of
organs, the noise of ropes rubbing against the wood
of the coffin. I pictured Juliette stretched out on the
bed, dressed in a white robe, her hands clasped, a
crucifix on her breast and flowers about her. And I
was surprised not to see black draperies on the door,
or a hearse with flowers and wreaths at the entrance
outside, or people in mourning fighting for a chance
to be sprinkled with holy water.

“Oh, Lirat, what a night that was! How did I
ever manage not to throw myself under the wheels of
the carriages, crash my head against the housewall,

194 CALVARY

or plunge into the Seine. I don’t know! ... Day
came. ... 1 had a notion to surrender to the police.
I wanted to go up to a policeman on the street and
say to him: ‘I have killed Juliette. ... Arrest me!’
But thoughts, each wilder than the other, came to my
mind, clashed and yielded to others. And I ran and
ran as if pursued by a pack of barking hounds... .
It was Sunday, | remember. There were many people
on the streets flooded with sunshine. I was sure that
all looked at me, that these people, seeing me run,
cried out in horror: ‘ Here is Juliette’s murderer!’
“Toward evening, worn out, on the verge of col-
lapsing on the sidewalk, I met Jesselin! ‘I say,’ he
exclaimed, ‘you have done a nice thing, you have!’
‘Do you already know it?’ ‘ Why, all Paris knows it,
dear friend. A little while ago, at the races, Juliette
showed us her neck and the marks which your fingers
had left on it. She said: “Jean did this to me.” Why,
man you are getting on fine!’ And while parting, he
added: ‘ For the rest, she has never been more beau-
tiful. And such a success!’ And so you see that while
I believed her to be dead, she was promenading at
the racetrack. I had left the house and she could
have thought that I would never come back again, and
yet she went to the races. . . prettier than ever!”
Lirat gravely listened to me. He was not pacing
about any more; he seated himself and shook his head.
“What do you want me to tell you? You must go
away.”
“Go away?” I rejoined. “I should go away? But
I don’t want to! An adhesive force like glue which is
getting thicker every day holds me fast to her carpets,
a chain growing heavier every day holds me riveted
to her walls. I can’t leave her! Look, at this very
moment I am dreaming of committing all sorts of
mad, heroic acts. To cleanse myself of all this base-

CALVARY 195

ness, I am ready to throw myself in front of the fire-
spitting muzzles of a hundred cannons. I feel myself
strong enough to crush whole formidable armies single
handed. When I walk on the street I look for run-
away horses, fires or any other dangerous adventure
where I can sacrifice my life. There is not a perilous
or superhuman deed that I have not the courage to
perform. But, that! I can not do!

“At first I offered myself the most ridiculous ex-
cuses, I gave myself the most illogical reasons for not
leaving her. I said to myself that if I left her, Juliette
would sink to even lower depths; that my love for her
had in some manner been her last vestige of decency
which I should finally succeed in restoring by saving
her from the mire in which she wallowed. Truly I
had been repaid by the luxury of pity and self sacrifice.
But I was lying! I simply can’t leave her! I can’t
because I love her, because the more depraved she is
the more I love her. Because I want her, do you hear,
Lirat? And if you only knew what it means to me,
this love, what frenzies, what shame, what tortures?
If you only knew to what depths of Hell passion can
sink, you would be horrified! At night when she is
asleep, I prowl about in her dressing room, opening
drawers, digging among the cinders of the fire place,
putting together pieces of torn letters, smelling the
linens which she has just removed, devoting myself to
the vilest spying, to the most shameful searching! It
was not enough for me to know; I had to see as well!
I have no longer a mind, a heart, or anything. I am
just the embodiment of disordered, raving, famished
sex, which demands its share of living flesh, like the
fallow-deer that howl in their frenzy on rutting nights.”

I was exhausted. . . the words came out of my
throat with a hissing sound. . . still I continued.

“Ah! It is beyond all comprehension! Sometimes it

196 CALVARY

happens that Juliette is sick. Her members, over-
strained by pleasure, refuse to obey her; her constitu-
tion, worn out by nervous shocks, revolts. She takes
to her bed. If you could only see her then? A child,
Lirat, a sweet and touching child! She dreams only
of the country, little brooks, green prairies, simple
joys: ‘ Oh, my dear, she exclaims, ‘ with ten thousand
francs of income, how happy we should be!’ She
makes all sorts of Virgilian and charming plans. ‘ We
ought to go far, far away, to live in a house surrounded
by tall trees. She will raise chickens which will lay
eggs she herself will take out of the hatching place
every morning; she will make cream, cheese; and she
will wear aprons like this and straw hats like that,
jogging along pathways astride a donkey that she
will call Joseph. Geeho! Joseph, Geeho! Ah, how nice
it will be!’

“When I hear her say that, I feel hope returning and
I let myself be taken in by that impossible dream of
a rustic life with Juliette disguised as a shepherdess.
Quiet landscapes like places of refuge, enchanting
like a paradise, unroll before us. ... and we grow
exalted and enthusiastic. Juliette cries: ‘My poor
little thing, I have caused you suffering, but now it’s
all over. I promise you. And then I am going to
have a trained ram, am I not? A beautiful ram, very
big, all white, around whom I shall tie a bow of red
ribbon, and who will follow me everywhere together
with Spy, not so, dear?’ She insists that I have
my dinner in front of her bed, on a little table, and she
coddles me like a nurse and caresses me like a mother;
she makes me eat as one does a child, repeating with-
out end and with agitation in her voice: ‘My poor
little thing!’

“At other moments she becomes thoughtful and
grave: ‘My dear, I would like to ask you something

CALVARY 197

that has been worrying me for a long time; promise
that you'll tell me.’ I promise. ‘ Well, when one is
dead, in the coffin, is it true that one’s feet rest against
the board?’ ‘ What an idea! Why do you speak of
it?’ ‘Tell me, please tell me!’ ‘But I don’t know,
my dear Juliette!’ ‘Don’t you know? Although it
is true that you never know anything when I am se-
rious. . . because... you see? ... I don’t want my
feet to rest against the board. When I am dead...
you shall put a cushion inside and my white dress. . .
you know the one with pink flowers. . . the dress
for which I won the first prize! You’ll be very sorry,
my poor little thing, won’t you? Embrace me! Come
over here, closer to me, still closer. I adore you!’

“ And I used to wish that Juliette were sick all the
time! But as soon as she recovers she does not re-
member anything; her promises, her resolutions are
gone and our life of hell begins again, more violent
and exasperating than ever. And from that little bit
of heaven to which IJ have held on for a while, I tumble
down again into the filth and crime of this love even
more frightfully maimed in spirit! Ah! that is not
all, Lirat! I should have stayed in that apartment to
brood over my shame, don’t you think! I should have
withdrawn into obscurity and oblivion sufficient to
make people believe that I am dead. And instead of
that! Well! Go to the Bois and you see me there every
day. At the theatre it is I whom you will find in the
stage box, in a dress suit, with a flower in my button-
hole, always I! Juliette is resplendent amidst flowers,
plumes and gems. She is exquisite, she has a new
dress which everyone admires, a stock of smiles each
more modest than the other, and the string of pearls
for which I have not paid, which she toys gracefully
with the tips of her fingers and without the least re-
morse. And here I have not a sou, not a sou! And I

198 CALVARY

am at the end of my rope, having exhausted all my
swindling tricks and crooked schemes! Often I
tremble. It seems to me that the heavy hand of a
gendarme is bearing down upon me. Already I hear
the painful whisper, I catch the stealthy looks of con-
tempt.

“Little by little emptiness broadens and recedes
all around me as around a pestiferous person. Old
friends pass by, turn their heads away, avoid me in
order not to greet me. . .. And unwillingly I assume
the sly and servile manner of disreputable people who
walk with eyes asquint and cringing back in search
of an outstretched hand! The horrible thing about
it, you see, is that I am perfectly conscious of the fact
that it is Juliette’s beauty that protects me. It is the
desire which she awakens, it is her mouth, it is the
mystery of her nude and defiled body which in this
pleasure-seeking world shields me with a false esteem,
with a lying semblance of respect. A handshake, a
grateful look seems to say: ‘I have been with your
Juliette, and I owe that to you. Perhaps you prefer
money? Do you want it?’ Yes, just let me quit Juliette
and with one kick I shall even be thrown out of this
crowd, this facile, fawning and perverted crowd and
shall be reduced to sordid association with gamblers
and pimps!”

I burst out sobbing. Lirat did not stir, did not raise
his head. Motionless, with clasped hands he was
looking at something I knew not what. . . nothing, I
suppose. After a few moments of silence I continued:

“My good Lirat, do you remember our talks in
your studio! I used to listen to you, and what you
told me was so beautiful! Without suspecting it, per-
haps, you awoke noble desires and sublime raptures
in me. You breathed into me a little of the belief,
ambition and lofty flights of your soul. You taught

CALVARY 199

me how to read nature, to understand her passionate
tongue, to feel the emotions latent in things. You
proved to me the existence of immortal beauty. You
said to me: ‘Love, why it is in the earthenware
pitcher, it is in the verminous rags which I paint. To
take a feeling, a joy, a moment of suffering, of palpita-
tion, a vision, a shudder —anything, no matter how
fugitive an experience of life it may be—and re-
create it, fix it in colors, in words or sounds, means
to love! Love is a man’s yearning to create!’

“ And I dreamed of becoming a great artist! Ah!
my dreams, my delights in being able to perceive
things, my doubts, my sacred agonies, do you remem-
ber them? Look what I have done with all that! I
wanted to love and I went to a woman who kills love.
I started with wings, drunk with the air, with the
azure, with light! And now I am nothing but a dirty
hog, sunk in its filth, with greedy snout and sides
shaking with impure rutting. You can see for your-
self, Lirat, that I am lost, lost, lost! .. and that I
must kill myself.”

Then Lirat approached and put both hands on my
shoulders:

“You say you are lost! Let us see now; when one
is of your stock, can one say that a man’s life is lost?
You say you must kill yourself? Does a man who has
typhoid fever say: ‘I must kill myself?’ He says: ‘I
must cure myself!’ You have typhoid fever, my poor
child. . . cure yourself. Lost! Why, there is not a
crime, do you hear me, there is not a crime, no matter
how monstrous and vile, that can not be redeemed by
forgiveness. I don’t mean God’s forgiveness or man’s
forgiveness, but one’s own forgiveness, which is much
more difficult and more worth while to obtain. Lost!
I was listening to you, my dear Mintié, and do you
know what I was thinking? I was thinking that you

200 CALVARY

had the noblest and most beautiful soul that I ever
knew. No, no. . . a man who accuses himself as you
do. . . who puts into his confession of sin the heart-
rending accents which you have put in yours just
now. .. why no—that man is never lost. On the
contrary, he finds himself again and he is near redemp-
tion. Love has passed over you and has left all the
more filth in its wake because of your extremely
delicate nature. Well! You must wash this filth off —
and I know where the water is that will wash it off.
You are going to leave this place. . . leave Paris.”

“ Lirat!” I entreated, “don’t ask me to leave! I
have tried it twenty times and I cannot do it.”

“You are going away,” repeated Lirat, whose face
suddenly darkened. “Or else I am mistaken about
you, and you are a scamp!”

He resumed:

“In the heart of Brittany there is a fishing village,
which is called Le Ploch. The air there is pure, nature
is superb, man rugged and kind. It is there that you
are going to live three months, six months, a year if
necessary. You will walk along the sandy shore, across
the heath, through pine forests, over rocks; you will
dig the soil, you will catch sea wrack, you will lift
logs, you will shout in the wind. There, at last, you
will subdue this poisoned body insane with love. In
the beginning it will be hard for you and you will per-
haps feel homesick. .. you will rebel, you will be
seized with passionate desires to return. Don’t be
discouraged, I beseech you. On days especially hard
to bear, walk all the more. . . spend nights out on the
sea with the brave people of the place. . . and when
your heart is heavy, weep, weep. Above all, keep from
leading an indolent life, from dreaming, from reading,
from carving your name on the rocks and tracing it
on the sand, Don’t think of anything, don’t think at

CALVARY 201

all! On such occasions, literature and art are poor
counsellors, they are apt to bring you back to love
again. Incessant activity of your body, hard physical
labor, your flesh worn out by crushing fatigue, your
head lashed and made giddy by the wind, by the rain,
by storms! I tell you, you will come back from that
place not only cured but stronger than ever and better
armed for struggle. And you shall have paid your
debt to that monster. You say, you shall have paid
it with your fortune? Well what of it, that’s nothing.
Why, I envy you and wish I could go with you. Come,
my dear Mintié, a little courage! Go!”

“Yes, Lirat, you are right. I must go away.”

“Well go then!”

“Tam going away tomorrow, I swear!”

“Tomorrow? Ah, tomorrow! She is going to come
back, isn’t that the idea? And you will throw your-
self in her arms again. No, go now!”

“Let me write to her. I can’t leave her like this,
without a word, without saying good bye to her. Lirat
just think! In spite of all this suffering, in spite of
all this shame, there still are happy memories, bliss-
ful hours. She is not wicked. . . she simply does not
know. . . that’s all. . . but she loves me. I shall go
away, I promise you I shall. But give me just one
more day! One more day! One day is not much, es-
pecially since I shall not see her any more! Ah, one
more day!”

“No, go now!”

“Lirat! My good Lirat!”

“ No! ”

“But I have no money! How do you expect me to’
go without money?”

“T have enough left to last you over the trip; I’ll
send it to you there. Go!”

“At least let me get my things ready!”

202 CALVARY

“T have some wool stockings and caps; that’s what
you need. Go!”

He hurried me away. Without seeing anything,
without realizing anything, I went through the apart-
ment, bumping into pieces of furniture. I did not
feel any pain, for I was insensible to everything; I was
walking behind Lirat with the heavy step and the pas-
sive gait of a beast led to slaughter.

“ Well where is your hat?”

“ That’s right! I went out without a hat. I did not
think that I was abandoning, that I was leaving behind
anything that was a part of me; that the things which
I saw, in the midst of which I lived, were dying one
after another as soon as I passed by them.”

The train left at eight o’clock in the evening. Lirat
did not leave me all day. Wishing, no doubt, to occupy
my mind and to keep my will power at its highest
pitch, he spoke to me with broad gestures; but I did
not hear anything except a confused noise, annoying
me and buzzing about my ears like pestering flies. We
dined in a restaurant near the Mont Parnasse railroad
station. Lirat continued to talk, stupefying me with
gestures and words, tracing strange geographic lines
with his knife on the table.

“Look, there’s where it is! Then you will follow
this side... and. . .”

I believe he was giving me instructions about my
trip to the place of exile I was bound for. . . told
me the names of villages, persons. The word ‘sea’
recurred again and again with the rumble of pebbles
washed by the waves and rubbing against one another.

“Will you remember? ”

And without knowing exactly what he referred to,
I answered:

“Yes, yes, I’ll remember.”

It was only at the station, this vast building, filled

CALVARY 203

with noise and bustle, that I realized my situation. I
felt terribly downhearted. And so I was going away!
It’s all over then! Never again shall I see Juliette,
never again! At this moment I forgot all my suffering,
my shame, my ruin, the irreparable conduct of Juliette
and remembered only our brief moments of happiness,
and I rebelled against the injustice of being separated
from my well-beloved. Lirat meantime was saying:

“ And then, if you only knew what a bliss it is to
live among the lowly, to study their poor but worthy
life, their resignation of martyrs, their... .”

I had a notion to escape his surveillance, to flee then
and there. A foolish hope kept me from doing that.
I said to myself: ‘ Celestine will no doubt bring word
to Juliette that Lirat has been at the house, that he
has led me away by force; she will understand at once
that something horrible is happening, that I am at this
station, that I am going to leave. And she will come
running.’ I really believed she would. So strong was
my faith that through the large open windows, I
watched the people who were entering; I searched
among the various groups, examined closely the dense
crowd of passengers standing in front of the track
gate. And whenever some elegant lady appeared I
gave a Start, ready to dart toward her. Lirat went on:

“ And to think that there are some people who con-
sider them brutes, these heroes! Ah! you will see
those magnificent brutes with their horny hands, their
eyes full of infinitude, and their backs which make
one weep.”

Even on the platform I was still hoping for Juliette’s
arrival. Surely in a second she will be here, pale, van-
quished, suppliant, with outstretched arms: “ My Jean,
my Jean, I was a bad woman, forgive me! Don’t bear
me ill-will on account of that, don’t forsake me. What
do you expect me to become, without you? Oh, come

204 CALVARY

back, my Jean, or else take me along!” And silhouettes
fitted and disappeared in the cars; fantastic shadows
crept along and split against the walls; long whitish
columns of smoke spread out under the vaulted roof...

“Embrace me, my dear Mintié. Embrace me!”

Lirat drew me close to his breast. He was crying.
“Write to me as soon as you get there. Good bye!”

He pushed me into a car and drew the door curtain.

“Good bye!”

A whistle, then a dull rolling. . . then lights chasing
one another. .. things receding somewhere. . . then
nothing. . . except black night. Why did Juliette not
come? Why? And in the midst of rumpled skirts on
the carpets, in her dressing room, in front of her look-
ing glass, I clearly see her, bare-shouldered, applying
rice powder to her face. Celestine with her soft flaccid
fingers is sewing on a band of crepe at the bottom of
the low cut waist, and a man whom I don’t know, re-
clining on the sofa, with crossed legs, watches Juliette
with eyes in which desire is gleaming. The gas is
burning, candle lights are blazing, a bouquet of roses
which someone has just brought, mingles its more
delicate perfume with the violent odors of dresses!
And Juliette takes a rose, twists its stem, straightens
out its petals and sticks it in the button-hole of the
man with a tender smile. A bonnet with hanging
strings is perched on top of a chandelier. .. .

And the train is moving on, puffing, panting. The
night is ever black, and I am plunging into nothing-
NON 2%:

CHAPTER IX

*

elbows sunk in the sand with head buried

in my hands, and staring into the space be-
fore me, I dream. ... The sea is in front of me,
immense and glaucous, streaked with violet shad-
ows, plowed by mighty billows whose crests,
rising and falling back and forth, are white in the sun.
The reefs of la Gamelle from time to time un-
cover the dark points of their rocks and send forth
a dull noise like a distant cannonade. Yesterday the
tempest broke loose; today the wind has subsided, but
the sea still refuses to quiet down. The waves come
up, swell, roll, rise, toss up their manes of swirling
foam, break into ripples and fall back upon the pebbles,
flat and broken, with a frightful roar of rage. But
the sky no longer threatens, streaks of blue appear
between the rifts of clouds swiftly borne away, and
the seagulls are soaring high in the air. The fishing
boats have just left the harbor, they are receding in
the distance, diminishing, separating, becoming in-
distinct and finally vanishing. To my right, dominated
by sinking dunes, is the strand extending as far as
Ploch, which one can see behind a rise in the ground in
the midst of dreary verdure, the roofs of the nearest
houses, the belfry of granite stone at the end of which
there rises a lighthouse. Beyond the pier the eye can
see limitless expanses of pink shores, silvery bays, soft-
blue cliffs covered with mist, so faint in the distance
that they look like columns of vapor, and the ever pres-
ent sea and the ever present sky which blend together
yonder into a sort of mysterious and poignant elimi-

L_ wv flat upon the dune, face downward, my

206 CALVARY

nation of all things. . . . To my left the dune, where
the broomrape spreads its corymbs of purple flowers,
ends abruptly. The ground rises, becomes steep and
the rocks pile up, topple over, form openings of roar-
ing abysses or plunge into the sea, cleaving its body
like the prows of giant vessels. Further on there is
the beach again.

The sea, held back by the shore, ever turbulent and
white with foam, leaps and beats impetuously against
the side of the cliffs. And the shore continues jagged,
indented and worn away by the eternal onrush of the
waves crumbling into a chaotic mass or rising and
shaping themselves into awesome shadows against the
sky. Over my head flocks of linnets are flying, and
above the rage of the waves the wind brings to me the
plaint of cock-pigeons and curlews.

It is here that I come every day. Whether it be
windy or rainy, whether the sea howl or hum peace-
fully, whether it be clear or dark, I always come to
this place. . . . It is not, however, because the sight
impresses and moves me or that the terrible or charm-
ing aspect of nature consoles me. I hate this nature;
I hate the sea, I hate the sky, the cloud that passes,
the wind that blows, the birds that circle in the air;
I hate everything that surrounds me, everything that
I see, everything that I hear. I come here by force
of habit, impelled by an animal instinct which calls
animals back to the place that is familiar to them. Like
the hare, I have dug my seat in the sand and I always
come back to it. Whether it is upon the sand or on
the moss, in the shadow of the woods, in the depths
of the caves or in the sun of the solitary strand —
does not matter!

Where can a man who suffers find refuge? Where
look for the voice that soothes! Where can he find
compassion which dries the eyes that weep? Oh! I

CALVARY 207

know these chaste dawns, these gay noon hours, these
pensive evenings and starry nights! . . . These end-
less distances where the soul expands, where sorrows
dissolve. . . Ah! I know them! . . . Beyond this hori-
zon line, beyond this sea, are there no countries like
the rest? Are there no people, no trees, no noises?
‘There is no rest, no silence for me! ... To die! ..
But who can assure me that the thought of Juliette
will not come to mingle with the worms to eat me

up? ... One stormy day I was face to face with
Death and I prayed to be taken by him. But Death
turned away from me. . . . He spared me, me who am

useless for anything or to anybody, to whom life is
more of a torture than the carcass of a condemned
criminal or the chain-shot of a galley-slave, and he
took another instead — a strong, brave and kindly man
for whom poor creatures were waiting! Yes, one time
the sea snatched me, rolled me on its waves and then
cast me up alive again upon the seashore, as if I were
unworthy to perish in it.

The solid mass of clouds breaks up, becomes
whiter. The sun showers the sea with rays of bril-
liant light, the changing green of the sea grows softer,
becomes golden in some places and opalescent in
others, and near the shore above, the bubbling line is
variegated with all the shades of pink and white. The
reflections of the sky which the waves endlessly divide,
which they break up into a multitude of small frag-
ments of light, glitter upon the agitated surface. Behind
the harbor the slender mast of a cutter, which men
are towing on the bowline, glides along slowly, then
the hull appears, the hauled-up sails swell out, and
gradually the vessel moves aways, dancing on the
waves. Along the beach which the ebb tide uncovers,
an angler is walking hastily, and ship-boys come run-
ning to the shore bare-legged, wade in the mud

208 CALVARY

puddles, pick up rocks covered with seaweed, in
search of loaches and crabs. ... Pretty soon the
vessel is nothing but a greyish speck on the horizon
line which grows thinner, enveloped in a vacuous
fog. . . . One can see that the sea is getting calm.

It is already two months that I have been here! . .
two months! .. . I have walked on the roads, in the
fields, through the heaths; I know all the grass blades,
all the rocks, all the crosses watching over the cross-
roads. ... Like a tramp I have slept in the ditches,
my limbs made numb by the cold, and I have crawled
ito the foot of the rocks, upon beds of humid foliage;
I have wandered over the beach and the cliffs, blinded
by the sand, lashed by the spray, deafened by the wind;
with bleeding hands and bruised knees I have climbed
rocks inaccessible to men, haunted only by sea ravens;
I have spent sorrowful nights on the sea and I have
seen sailors crossing themselves in the terror of death;
I have rolled from the tops of huge boulders, and with
the water up to my neck, swept by dangerous currents,
I have fished sea weeds; I have climbed trees and I
have dug the earth with a mattock.

The people here thought that I was out of my mind.
My arms are broken. My flesh is bruised. And yet
not for a minute, not for a second has my passion de-
serted me, it has possessed me even more than in the
past. I feel how it strangles me, how it squashes my
brains, crunches my chest, gnaws my heart, dries up
my veins. ...I am like a small animal attacked by
a polecat; no matter how much I roll on the ground
desperately struggling with its teeth, the polecat holds
me and won’t let me go. Why did I go away?...
Couldn’t I hide myself away in a room at some fur-
nished house? ... Juliette would come to see me
from time to time, nobody would know that I existed,
and in my obscurity I could enjoy my heavenly as

CALVARY 209

well as abominable bliss. . . . Lirat had spoken to me
of honor, of duty, and I believed him! ... He had
said to me: “ Nature will console you.” And I be-
lieved him! Lirat had lied to me. Nature has no
soul. Entirely given over to her eternal labor of de-
struction, she whispers to me nothing but thoughts of
death and crime. Never has she bent over my burn-
ing forehead to cool it or stooped over my panting
breast to calm it. And infinitude has only brought
sorrow closer to me! Now I can no longer resist, and
vanquished, I abandon myself to grief, without even
making an effort to drive it away occasionally.

Though the sun rise in the splendor of silver gilt
dawns, though it go down in purple glory, though the
sea display its gems, though everything glitter, sing
and emit sweet odors, I don’t want to see anything, I
don’t want to hear anything. . . . I only want to see
Juliette in the fugitive outline of the clouds; I only
want to hear Juliette in the errant plaint of the wind,
and I am ready to kill myself just to grasp her elusive
image in the things about me! ...I1 see her at the
Bois smiling, happy with her freedom. I see her pro-
menading in the stage boxes; I see her especially at
night, in her bedroom. Men enter and go out, others
come in and leave, all sated with love! By the glimmer
of the night lamp, obscene shadows dance and grimace
around her bed; laughter, kisses and dull spasms are
stifled in the pillows, and with a swooning look, with
trembling mouth, she offers everyone her luxurious
body which never tires of pleasure. With my brains
on fire, sinking my nails into my throat, I shriek:
“Juliette! Juliette!” as if it were possible for Juliette
to hear me across the space: “Juliette! Juliette!”
Alas! the cry of the sea-gulls and the rumbling noise
of the waves beating against the rocks are the only
things that answer: “ Juliette! Juliette!”

210 CALVARY

And evening comes. ... The fogs float up, pink
and weightless, enveloping the shore, the village, while
the jetty, almost black, assumes the appearance of the
hull of a huge vessel without masts; the sun inclines
its copper-colored ball toward the sea, tracing a path
of rippling, crimson light upon its limitless extent.
Near the shore the water grows darker, and sparkles
flare up on the crests of the waves. At this sad hour
I return through the fields, meeting again the same
carts pulled by oxen covered with cloths of grey flax,
seeing the same silhouettes of peasants who, bent
over the niggardly soil, struggle grimly with the heath
and the rocks. And upon the heights of Saint-Jean
where the windmills rotate their sails in the blue of
the sky, the same calvary stretches out its supplicating
arms. ...

I lived at the end of the village with Mother Le
Gannec, an excellent woman who took care of me as
well as she could. The house which opened on the
main road was clean, well-kept, furnished with new
and shining furniture. The poor woman strove to
please me, worked desperately to invent something
that would smooth my brow, that would bring a smile
upon my lips. She was really touching. Every time
I came down in the morning I would find her, knitting
stockings or spinning, finished with her housework,
alive, alert, almost pretty in her flat cap, her short
black shawl, and her apron of green serge.

“Friend Mintié!” she would exclaim, “I have
cooked some nice shell-fish fricassee for supper for
you. . . . If you like sea-eel soup better, I’ll make you
some sea-eel soup.”

“Just as you please, Mother Le Gannec.”

“ But you always say the same thing. Ah! by Jesus!
Friend Lirat was not like you at all. ‘Mother Le
Gannec, I want some oysters and some periwinkles. ’

CALVARY 211

To be sure I gave him some oysters and some peri-
winkles! ... But he was never as sad as you are.
Why no, indeed!”

And Mother Le Gannec told me some stories about
Lirat who stayed with her a whole autumn.

“And he was so lively and so intrepid! ... He
would go out in the rain ‘to take some views.’ It did
not hurt him a bit. He would come back drenched to
the bones but always gay, always singing! ... You
ought to have seen that fellow eat! Ah, he could
swallow the sea in the morning!”

Sometimes, to distract me, she told me her misfor-
tunes, simply, without complaining, repeating with
sublime resignation:

“Whatever the good Lord wishes, we must wish
also. To cry over it all the time won’t help matters a
bit.”

And in a musical voice which all Bretons possess,
she used to say:

“Le Gannec was the best fisherman in Ploch and
the most daring seaman on the entire coast. There was
none whose fishing boat was better equipped, none
who better knew reefs abounding with fish. When-
ever a fishing boat dared out in stormy weather it was
sure be the Marie Joseph. Everybody held him in
high esteem not only because he was courageous but
because his conduct was beyond reproach and worthy.
He shunned the cabarets like a pest, detested drunk-
ards, and it was an honor to be of the same mind as
he was. I must also tell you that he was the comman-
der of a life boat. We had two boys, friend Mintié,
strong, well-built and able, one was eighteen years
old and the other twenty, and the father expected
both to be brave seamen as he was. ... Ah! If you
had only seen my two handsome boys, friend Mintié!
Things were coming along nicely, in fact so nicely

212 CALVARY

that with our savings we were able to build this house
and buy this furniture. And so we were contented!
One night, it was two years ago, the father and the
boys did not return! I was not alarmed at all. It often
happened that he had gone out far, as far as Croisic,
Sables or Herbaudiére. Was it not his business to
follow the fish? But days passed and none showed
up! And the days were still passing. . . . And not one
came back! Every morning and every evening I used
to go to the harbor and look at the sea... . I used
to ask the fishermen whom I happened to meet: ‘ Have
you seen the Marie Joseph yet?’ ‘ No,’ someone would
answer, ‘I wonder why they haven’t come back?’ ‘I
don’t know.’ ‘Do you think some misfortune hap-
pened to them?’ ‘It’s quite possible!’ And while
saying this the fisherman would cross himself. Then
I burned three candles at the Notre Dame du Bon

Voyage! ... Finally one day, they came back, all
three of them, in a big cart, black, swollen, half de-
voured by crabs and starfishes. .. . Dead. . . . Dead.

. all three of them, my man and my two hand-
some boys. The keeper of the Penmarch lighthouse
had found them washed upon the rocks.”

I was not listening and was thinking of Juliette.
Where is she? Why does she keep silent? Eternal
questions!

Mother Le Gannec continued:

“I don’t know your affairs, friend Mintié, and I
don’t know why you are so unhappy, but you have
not lost your man and your two boys at one stroke as
I have! And even if I don’t cry, friend Mintié, that
does not keep me from feeling sad, you see!”

And when the wind howled, when the sea rumbled
from afar, she would add with a grave voice:

“Holy Virgin, have pity on our poor children over
yonder on the sea.”

CALVARY 213

While I was thinking:

“Perhaps she is dressing now. Maybe she is still
sleeping, worn out during the night.”

I used to go out, walk through the village and seat
myself on a stump on the Quimper road, at the foot
of a long acclivity, waiting for the postman to arrive.
The road, laid out in the midst of rocks, is flanked on
one side by a long embankment topped by fir trees,
on the other side it dominates a small arm of the sea,
which winds round the heath, bare and flat, in the
midst of which puddles are shining. Here and there
cones of grey rock rise up in the air; a few pines
spread their blue crowns in the foggy atmosphere.
Over my head, ravens never cease flying, strung out
in a black and endless line, hastening toward I know
not what voracious feasts, and the wind brings the
sad tinkling of bells hung on the necks of the scat-
tered cows, grazing upon the niggardly grass of the
heath.

As soon as I would see two little white horses and
a coach with a yellow body descending the hillside in
the clatter of old iron and bells, my heart would start
beating faster. . . “‘ There is perhaps a letter from her
in that coach!” I would say to myself. And that
old, dilapidated vehicle creaking on its springs ap-
peared to me more splendid than a royal carriage, and
the driver with his crush hat and his red face looked
to me like a deliverer of some kind. How could
Juliette write to me when she did not know where
I was? But I was still hoping for a miracle! Then
I would go back to the village, walking hastily, assur-
ing myself by a succession of irrefutable arguments,
that on that day I was going to get a long letter, in
which Juliette would let me know of her coming to me,
and I was reading in advance, her tender words, her
passionate phrases, her repentance; on the paper I saw

214 CALVARY

traces of tears wet as yet, for all this while, I thought,
Juliette was passing her time in crying. Alas!
Nothing came from her. Sometimes there was a letter
from Lirat, admirable, fatherly in its contents, which
bored me. With heavy heart, feeling more than ever
the crushing weight of loneliness, my mind excited
by a thousand projects, one more foolish than the
other, I would return to my dune. From this short-
lived hope I would pass to keenest sorrow, and the
day would pass in invoking Juliette, in calling her,
in begging for her from the pale flowers on the sands,
from the foam of the waves, from all this insensible
nature about me which denied her to me and which
ever revealed her indistinct image, marred by the
kisses of everybody.

“ Juliette! Juliette!”

One day, on the jetty, I met a young lady in the
company of an old gentleman. Tall, slender, she
looked pretty under her veil of white gauze which
covered her face and whose ends, tied at the back of
her grey felt hat, fluttered in the wind. Her graceful
and supple movements resembled those of Juliette.
Indeed in the way she carried her head, in the delicate
curves of her waist line, in the way her arms fell, in
the ruffling of her dress in the air, I recognized some-
thing of Juliette. I looked at her with emotion and
two tears rolled down my cheeks. She walked to the
end of the pier. I sat down on the parapet and, pen-
sive and fascinated, followed the silhouette of the
young lady. As she was moving away, I felt affected
more and more. ... Why had I not known her be-
fore I met the other one? I would have loved her
perhaps! A young girl who has never felt the impure
breath of man upon her, whose ears are chaste, whose
lips have never known lewd kisses, what a joy it
would be to love her, to love her as angels do!

CALVARY 215

The white veil was fluttering above her like the
wings of a sea-gull. And suddenly she disappeared
behind the lighthouse. At the bottom of the jetty
the sea splashed back and forth like a child’s cradle
rocked by a nurse who hums a lullaby, and the sky
was cloudless; it was stretched above the motionless
surface of the water like a huge flowing curtain of
light muslin.

The young lady was not long in coming back. She
passed so near that her dress almost brushed against
me. She was blond; I should have liked it better if
she were dark as Juliette was. She walked away,
left the jetty, took to the village road and pretty soon
I saw only a white veil which seemed to say: “ Good-
bye, goodbye! Don’t be sad, I shall come back.”

In the evening I asked Mother Le Gannec about
her.

“That’s demoiselle Landudec,” she replied, “a very
excellent and well deserving girl, friend Mintié. The
old gentleman is her father... They live in the big
chateau on the Saint Jean road. You know which one
I mean. ... You have been there several times.”

“ How is it that I have never seen them?”

“Ah! Lord!...j/That’s because the old man is
always sick and the girl stays at home to take care
of him, the poor thing! Undoubtedly he must have
felt better today and she took him out for a walk.”

“Hasn’t she got a mother?”

“No. Her mother has been dead for quite some
time.”

“Are they rich?”

“Rich? Not so very! But they help everybody
... If you only went to mass on Sunday you would
see the kind young lady.”

That evening I remained to talk with Mother Le
Gannec much longer. I saw the kindly lady again

’

216 CALVARY

several times on the jetty, and on those days the
thought of Juliette was less oppressive. I wandered
in the neighborhood of the chateau which looked to
me as desolate as the Priory. Grass was sprouting in
the courtyard, the lawns were not well kept, the
alleys of the park were broken up by the heavy carts
of nearby farmers. The grey stone facade, turned
green by rain, was as gloomy as the large granite
rocks that one saw on the waste land.... The follow-
ing Sunday I went to mass, and I saw demoiselle
Landudec praying among the peasants and fishermen.
Kneeling on her prayer stool, her slim body bent like
a primitive virgin, her head over a book, she prayed
with fervor. Who knows? Perhaps she understood
that I was unhappy and mentioned my name in her
prayers? And while the priest was chanting his ori-
son in a tremulous voice, while the nave of the church
was being filled with the noise of wooden shoes beat-
ing against the slabs and with the whisper of lips
in prayer, while the incense in the censer rose to the
ceiling together with the shrill voices of the children
in the choir, while the young lady prayed as Juliette
would have done had she prayed at all, I was dream-
ing.... I was in the park, and the young lady ap-
proached, bathed in moonlight. She took my hand,
and we walked on the lawns and in the shadow of
rustling trees.

“Jean,” she said to me, “you are suffering and I
have come to you. I have asked God if I could love
you. God permits. I love you!”

“You are too beautiful, too pure, too holy to love
me! You must not love me!”

“T love you! Put your arm in mine, rest your head
on my shoulder and let us walk together, always!”

“No, no! Is it possible for the lark to love the
owl? Is it possible for the dove that flies in heaven to

CALVARY 217

love the toad which hides itself in the mud of stagnant
waters?”

“ You are not an owl, and you are not a toad, for I
have chosen you! The love which God has permitted
me to bear blots out all sin and assuages all sorrow.
Come with me and I shall give you happiness.”

“No, no! My heart is cankered, and my lips have
drunk the poison which kills souls, the poison which
damns angels like you; don’t look at me so, for my
eyes will defile you and you will be like Juliette!...”

The mass was over, the vision disappeared. There
arose a noise of moved chairs and heavy steps in the
church, and the children of the choir put out the tapers
on the altar.... Still kneeling, the girl was praying.
Of her face I could distinguish only a profile lost in
the shadow of the white veil. She got up, after mak-
ing the sign of the cross. I had to move my chair
to let her pass. She passed...and I felt a real joy,
as though in refusing the love which she offered me in
thought I had just now fulfilled a great duty.

She occupied my mind for a week. I resumed my
furious walks through the moor, on the strand, and I
wished I could conquer my passion. While walking,
driven by the wind, carried along by that peculiar
exaltation occasioned by rain pelting the sea shore,
I imagined all sorts of romantic conversations with
demoiselle Landudec and nocturnal adventures which
took place in enchanted and lunar places. Like the
characters in an opera, we vied with each other in
sublime thought, in heroic sacrifices, in wonderful de-
votion ; under the spell of the passionate rhythms and
stirring recurrences of the song of the elements, we
extended the boundaries of human self-denial. A
sobbing orchestra accompanied the anguish of our
voices.

“T love you! I love you

”?
!

218 CALVARY

“No, no! You must not love me!”

She, in a very long white gown, with a bewildered
look and outstretched arms... I, gloomy, inexorable,
the calves of my legs swelling under the violet silk
tight garment, my hair disheveled by the wind.

“T love you! I love you!”

“No! No! You must not love me!”

And the violins emitted inaudible plaints, the wind
instruments moaned, while the double basses and the
dulcimers rumbled like tempest and peals of thunder.

Oh, the tragi-comedy of sorrow!

A curious thing! Demoiselle Landudec and Juliette
became one; I no longer separated them, I confused
them in my dreams, extravagant and melodramatic.
Both were too pure for me.

“No! No! I ama leper, leave me alone!”

They passionately kissed my wounds, spoke of death
and cried: “I love you! I love you!”

And vanquished, subdued, redeemed by love I fell
at their feet. The old father, dying, spread his arms
over us and blessed us, the three of us!

This trance did not last long; I soon found myself
on the dune, face to face with Juliette.

There were no violins, no wind instruments any
longer, only the howl of anguish and revolt, the cry of
a captured stag craving the female of its species.

“Juliette! Juliette!”

One evening I returned home more despondent than
ever, my mind obsessed with dismal projects, my arms
and hands in some manner agitated by a mad desire
to kill, to strangle. I would have liked to feel some-
thing alive writhing, rattling, dying under the pressure
of my fingers. Mother Le Gannec was standing at
the threshold, darning the never failing pair of stock-
ings. She said to me:

CALVARY 219

“How late you are today, friend Mintié! I have
prepared some nice sea-crab for you!”

“Leave me alone, you drivelling woman!” I
shouted. “I don’t want your sea-crab, I don’t want
anything, do you hear me?”

And sputtering angry words, I brutally made her
step aside to let me pass. The poor kindly woman,
stupefied by my action, lifted her arms to heaven and
moaned.

“ Ah! My Lord! Ah, Jesus!”

I went to my room and locked myself in. At first I
rolled on the bed, smashed two chairs, beat my head
against the wall. Then, I suddenly sat down to write
a letter to Juliette, exalted, raging, full of terrible
threats and humble entreaties; a letter in which I
spoke of killing her, of forgiving her, in which I
begged her to come to see me before I died, describing
to her in tragic detail the cliff from which I was going
to throw myself into the sea. I compared her to the
lowest women in the brothel and two lines further I
compared her to the Holy Virgin. More than twenty
times I started this letter over again, excited, weeping,
in turn delirious with rage and swooning with tender-
ness. Presently I heard a noise behind the door like
the scratching of a mouse. I opened it. Mother Le
Gannec was standing there, trembling and pale; she
looked at me with her kind, bewildered eyes.

“What are you doing here?” I shouted. “ Why
do you spy on me? Go away!”

“Friend Mintié,’” muttered the sainted woman,
“don’t be angry. I can see that you are unhappy and
I came to know if I can help you!”

“Well, suppose I am unhappy! Does that concern
you? Here, take this letter to the post office and
leave me in peace.”

For four days I did not leave my room. Mother

220 CALVARY

Le Gannec came to make my bed and serve my meal.
She was humble, timid, more attentive than ever,
sighing:

“Ah! What a misfortune! My Lord, what a mis-
fortune! ”

I realized that I was not acting as I should; she had
been so kind to me; I wanted to ask forgiveness for
my rudeness. Her white coif, her black shawl, her sad
figure of an afflicted mother touched me. But a sort
of foolish pride threw a damper on this effusion. She
walked near me, resigned, with an air of infinite
motherly pity; from time to time she repeated:

“Ah! What a misfortune! My Lord! What a
misfortune! ”

The day drew to a close. While Mother La Gannec,
after having mailed the letter, was sweeping the room,
I sat at the window, my elbows resting on the ledge.
The sun had disappeared behind the horizon line,
leaving of its dazzling glory only a reddish transpar-
ency on the sky, and the sea, grown dark, dull, no
longer reflecting light, assumed a sad hue. Night
came, silent and slow, and the air was so calm that
one could hear the rhythmic noise of oars striking
the water of the wharf and the distant creaking of
halliards on the masts tops. The beacon light was
turned on, its red light turning in space like some
irrational astral body.... And I felt very unhappy!

Juliette did not answer me!... Juliette would not
come!... My letter, no doubt, had frightened her.
She had recalled furious, savage, strangling scenes.
She was afraid and would not come! And besides,
were there not races, banquets, dinners, a line of im-
patient men at her door, waiting for her, claiming her,
men who had paid in advance for the promised night?
Why should she come, after all? There was no Casino
on this desolate beach; in this God-forsaken corner of

CALVARY 221

the coast there was no one to whom she could sell
herself.

As for me, she had taken all my money, my brains,
my honor, my future, everything! What more could
I give her? Nothing. Why then should she come?
If I had only told her that I had ten thousand francs
left she would have come running. But to what pur-
pose? Ah! Let her not come! My anger subsided,
self-disgust replaced it, a frightful disgust! How could
it be possible that a man who was not bad, whose
past aspirations lacked neither nobility of character
nor ardor, should fall so low, in such a short time, into
a mire so deep that no human force could lift him out
OF tho

What I now suffered from was not so much my own
follies, my own disgrace and crimes as the misery
which I had caused those around me. Old Marie!.. ;
Old Felix! . . . Oh, the poor couple! Where were they
now? What were they doing? Did they have any-
thing to eat, at least? Had I not compelled them to
beg their bread when I expelled them—so old, so
kind, so confiding, more feeble and desolate than
homeless dogs! I saw them bent over their staffs,
horribly thin, coughing, harassed, spending nights in
chance lodgings. And the sainted Mother Le Gannec
who took care of me as a mother her child, who lulled
me to sleep with her warm caresses like those be-
stowed on little ones! Instead of kneeling before her,
of thanking her, did I not treat her brutally, did I not
almost beat her! Ah, no! Let her not come! Let
her not come!

Mother Le Gannec lit the lamp, and I was about to
close the window when I heard the tinkling of small
bells upon the road, then the trundling of a carriage.
I mechanically looked out. Indeed a carriage had
ascended the steep hill of this place, it was a sort of

222 CALVARY

stage which appeared very high and loaded with
trunks. A fisherman passed by. The postman asked
him:

“ Will you please tell us where the house of Madame
Le Gannec is?” “It is in front of you,” answered the
fisherman, who indicated the house with a motion of
hand and continued on his way.

I grew very pale .. . and I saw by the light of the
lantern a small gloved hand resting on the handle of
the stage door.

“Juliette! Juliette!” I shouted like a madman.
“Mother Le Gannec, it’s Juliette! ... Quick, quick

. it’s Juliette!”

Running, tumbling down the stairway, I dashed to
the street: “Juliette! My Juliette!”

Arms embraced me, lips pressed against my cheek,
a voice breathed in my ears:

“Jean! My dear little Jean!”

And I swooned into the arms of Juliette.

It did not take me long to regain my senses, how-
ever. They put me to bed and Juliette, bent over me,
embraced me, crying:

“Ah! Poor little thing. How you frightened me!
How pale you still are! Is it all over, tell me? Speak
to me, my Jean!”

I did nothing but look at her. It seemed as though
my whole being, inert and rigid, smitten by a powerful
blow, by some great suffering or happiness—I did
not know which — had brought back and crowded into
my glance all the life forces leaving me, dripping from
my limbs, my veins, my heart, my brains... . I was
looking at her! She was still beautiful, a little paler
than in the past, but on the whole the same as ever,
with her beautiful, sweet eyes, her lovely mouth, her
deliciously childish voice. In her countenance, her
gestures, the movements of her body, her words I

CALVARY 223

wanted to find some sorrowful traces of her unknown
existence, some blemish, some evidence of depravity,
something new and more withered. But no, she was
paler, and that was all. And I burst into tears.

“Sit still, I want to look at you more, my little
Juliette!”

She drank in my tears and wept, holding me in a
close embrace.

“My Jean! Ah, my adored Jean!”

Mother Le Gannec rapped at the door of the room.
She did not speak to Juliette, pretending not to see her.

“ What shall I do with the trunks, friend Mintié?”
she asked,

“Have some one bring them up here, Mother Le
Gannec.”

“You could not bring them all up here,” the old
woman harshly replied.

“Have you got many of them, dearie?”

“Many? Why no! There are only six. These peo-
ple are stupid!”

“Well, Mother Le Gannec,” I said, “keep them-
downstairs tonight. We shall see tomorrow.”

I got up, while Juliette examined the room, occa-
sionally exclaiming:

“Why, it’s so nice here! There’s a lot of fun here,
my dear. And you have a bed, too, a real bed. And
I thought they slept in wardrobes in Brittany! Ah!
What is that? Don’t stir, Jean, don’t stir.”

From the mantlepiece she took a large shell and
put it to her ear.

“Wait!” she said with disappointment. “ Wait
now, it does not make that sh-sh-sh sound. Why is
that?”

She suddenly rushed into my arms and covered me
with kisses.

“Ah! your beard! You are growing whiskers, you

224 CALVARY

villain! Ah how long your hair is! And how thin
you are! And I, have I changed much! Am I still beau-
tiful? ”

She placed her arms around my neck and rested her
head on my shoulder:

“Tell me what you have been doing here, how you
have spent your time, what you have been thinking
about. Tell it all to your little wifie. And don’t tell
lies. Tell her everything, everything.”

Then I described my furious walks, my prostrations
on the dune, my sobbing, the fact that I had been
seeing her everywhere, calling her like a madman in
the wind, in the tempest.

“Poor little thing!” she sighed. “And you prob-
ably have not even a raincoat.”

“And you? you, my Juliette? Did you ever think
of me?”

“Ah! When I found you gone from the house I
thought I would die. Celestine told me that a man
had come to take you away! Still I waited... ,. He
will come, he will come. ... But you did not come
back. The next morning I ran to Lirat! Oh, if you
only knew how he received me! . . how he treated
me! And I asked everybody: ‘Do you know where
Jean is?’ And no one could answer me. Oh, you
naughty boy! To leave me like that. . . without a
word! Don’t you love me any more? Then, you un-
derstand, I wanted to forget myself. I was suffering
too much.”

Her words had a sharp, curt ring in them:

“As for Lirat, you may rest assured, my dear, I’ll
get even with him. You'll see! It'll be a farce! What
a mean person your friend Lirat is! But you'll see.”

One thing tormented me: how many days or, weeks
would Juliette stay with me? She had brought six
trunks with her; hence she intended to remain at

CALVARY 225

Ploch for a month at least,—perhaps longer. To-
gether with the great anticipated joy of possessing
her without fear or obstacle, there mingled a keen un-
easiness. I had no money, and I knew Juliette too
well not to realize that she would not resign herself
to a life like mine, and I foresaw expenditures which
I was not in a position to make. What was to be done?
Not having enough courage to ask her conte I an-
swered:

“We have plenty of time to think of it, my dear.
In about three months from now when we shall go
back to Paris.

“Three months! Why no, my poor little thing, I
leave in a week. I am so sorry.’

“Stay here, my little Juliette, I implore you, stay
here altogether. Stay longer! A fortnight!”

“It is impossible, really. Oh, don’t be sad, my dear!
Don’ t cry! If you cry I won’t tell you something very
nice.’

She became more affectionate, nestled and resumed :

“ Listen, my dear. I have only one thought, and that
is to live with you! We shall leave Paris, we shall
move into a small house, hidden so well, you see, that
no one will know that we are living. All we need
is an income of twenty thousand francs.”

“Where do you expect me to get that much now?”
I exclaimed discouraged.

“ Now, listen to me,” continued Juliette. “ We need
only twenty thousand francs. Well, I have figured it
all out! In six months we shall have it.

Juliette looked at me with a mysterious air and
repeated:

“We shall have it!”

“Please don’t talk like that, my dear. You don’t
know how you hurt me.”

226 CALVARY

Juliette raised her voice, the wrinkle on her fore-
head grew rigid.

“Then you want me always to belong to others?”

“Oh! keep still, Juliette! Keep still! Never talk to
me like that, never!”

“You are so funny! Come now, be nice and em-
brace me!”

The next morning, while dressing in the midst of
opened trunks and scattered dresses, very much dis-
concerted by the absence of her chamber maid, she
made all sorts of plans for the day. She wanted to
take a walk on the jetty, to visit the lighthouse, to
fish, to walk to the dune and sit down on the spot where
I had cried so much. She said she enjoyed watching
the pretty Breton girls in braided and embroidered
dresses, like those in the theatre, drinking fresh milk
on the farms!

“ Are there any boats here?”

“ec Yes.”

“ Lot of them?”

“ Certainly.”

“ Ah! What a chance. I like boats so much!”

Then she gave me news of Paris. Gabrielle no longer
lived with Robert. Malterre was married. Jesselin
was ona trip. He had had several duels. And gossip
about everybody. All this bad odor of Paris brought
back my melancholy and bitter memories. Seeing me
sad, she interrupted herself and embraced me, assum-
ing an air of distress:

“Ah! Perhaps you suppose I like this life!” she
said plaintively, “and that I only think of amusing
myself, of flirting. If you only knew! There are cer-
tain things that I can’t tell you. But if you knew what
a torture it is to me! You think you are unhappy! How
about me? Why, if I did not have the hope of living

CALVARY 227

with my Jean I would kill myself, so often do I feel
disgusted with life.”

And, dreaming and wheedling, she would revert to
the subject of farming, of hidden paths covered with
verdure, of the peace and sweetness of a retired life
amid flowers, domestic animals and love. Ah! de-
voted, humble, eternal love, love that was to brighten
our life like the dazzling sun!

We went out after the breakfast which Mother Le
Gannec sullenly served us, without once opening her
mouth. We were hardly out, when the wind fresh-
ened; it disheveled Juliette’s hair. She wanted to
return to the house.

“ Ah! The wind, dear! I can’t stand the wind. It
spoils my hair and makes me sick.”

She was bored all day and our kisses could not
dispel the feeling of emptiness. Just as in the past,
in my study, she spread a napkin on her dress, placed
a few small nail brushes and files on the napkin, and
gravely began to polish her nails. I suffered cruelly,
and the vision of the old man at the window ob-
sessed me.

The next day Juliette announced that she had to
leave that very evening.

“Ah! What a misfortune, my dear! I have for-
gotten! Quick, quick, get me a carriage. Oh! what
a misfortune! ”

I made no effort to detain her. Sunk in my chair
motionless, gloomy, my head buried in my hands, I
sat throughout the preparations for her departure
without uttering a single word or making a single
request. Juliette went out, returned, folding her
gowns, arranging her dressing-case, locking her
trunks; I heard nothing, saw nothing, knew nothing.
Men came in; their heavy steps caused the floor to

228 CALVARY

creak. I understood that they were taking the trunks
away. Juliette sat on my lap.

“My poor little dear,” she cried, “ you suffer be-
cause I leave so soon. You should not feel hurt. . .
be sensible. Besides, I’ll come back shortly and stay
along time. Don’t act so. I’ll come back. I promise
you. I’ll bring Spy along. I'll also bring a horse to
ride on, yes? You'll see how well your little wifie
rides on horseback. Now embrace me, my Jean! Why
don’t you embrace me? Come on, Jean! Good bye!
I adore you! Good bye!”

It was growing dark when Mother Le Gannec came
into my bedroom. She lit the lamp and gently ap-
proached.

“Friend Mintié! Friend Mintié!”

I lifted my eyes; she was so sad, there breathed
such merciful pity from her that I threw myself into
her arms.

“Ah! Mother Le Gannec! Mother Le Gannec!” I
sobbed. “ That is what is killing me!”

Mother Lé Gannec murmured:

“Friend Mintié, why don’t you pray to the merciful
Lord? That will relieve you.”

CHAPTER X

is a hood of red hot iron upon my head. My blood

thickens, one might say that my dilated arteries
were bursting, and I have the sensation of tongues
of fire licking my loins. Whatever human quali-
ties there still remained in me, what little shame, re-
morse, self-respect and vague hopes buried under the
heap of filth have been left in me by moral suffering,
the little that has still held me bound by a thread, be
it ever so weak, to thinking creatures—all this has
now been destroyed by the madness of a frenzied
brute. No longer do I entertain thoughts of Good,
Truth, Justice, the inflexible laws of nature. I am no
longer conscious of the sexual aversion which exists
between the various species in the animal kingdom,
keeping the world in constant harmony: everything is
in a whirl, everything is confused into one tremendous
and sterile carnal essence and, in the delirium of my
senses, I rave only of unnatural embraces. Not only
does the image of prostituted Juliette no longer torment
me, but on the contrary it excites my passions! And in
my mind I seek, I cling to her, I try to fix her in my
memory by ineffaceable marks, I confound her with
things, with beasts, with monstrous creatures and I
myself lead her to criminal debauchery, spurred on
by burning pains. Juliette is no longer the only image
that tempts and haunts me. Gabrielle, the Rabineau
woman, Mother Le Gannec, Demoiselle Landudec,
pass before my eyes in wanton postures. Neither
virtue, nor goodness, nor unhappiness, nor sacred old
age holds me back, and for the scene of these fright-

[: is a week since I have been able to sleep. There

230 CALVARY

ful frenzies I purposely choose holy and hallowed
places, altars in churches, tombs at the cemeteries.
I no longer suffer in my soul; I suffer only in my
flesh. My soul died in Juliette’s last kiss, and now I
am nothing but a form of foul, sensuous flesh, into
which demons have been furiously at work pouring
streams of molten, seething metal. Oh! I could never
have forseen such castigation !

The other day I met a fisherwoman on the strand.
She was black, dirty, foul-smelling, like a heap of putri-
fied sea wrack. I made advances to her with silly
gestures. And suddenly I fled, for I felt a diabolic
temptation to rush upon her and throw her down
amid the pebbles and small pools of water. I roamed
and tramped across the country with dilated nostrils,
taking in, like a harrier, the odor of sex. ... One
night, with burning throat, driven mad by abomin-
able visions, I found my way into the crooked alleys
of the village and rapped at the door of a loose woman.
And I went into this den. But as soon as I felt the
unknown contact I uttered a cry of rage; I wanted to
leave; she held me back.

“Let me go!” I shouted.

“Why are you going away?”

“Let me go!”

“Stay here. I’ll love you. I often followed you on .
the beach. I often roamed about the house where you
are staying. I wanted you. Stay here!”

“Let me go, I tell you! You don’t know how dis-
gusting you are to me!”

And when she hung on my neck, I struck her. She
groaned.

“Ah! My God! He is mad!”

Mad! Yes, I am mad! I have looked at myself in
the mirror and I am afraid of my own image. My dis-
tended eyes shine from the midst of their orbits which

CALVARY 231

are hollow; my bones protrude from under the yellow
skin; my mouth is pale, trembling, hanging like the
mouths of lascivious old men. My gestures are erratic,
and my fingers, constantly agitated by nervous shocks,
crack, seeking a prey in the air.

Mad! Yes, I am mad! Whenever Mother Le Gannec
is moving about me, when I hear her slippers drag-
ging on the floor, when her dress brushes against me,
criminal notions come and take possession of me;
they pursue me and I cry:

“Go away, Mother Le Gannec, go away.”

Mad! Yes, I am mad! Often at night I stand for
hours at the door of her room, my hand upon the knob,
ready to plunge into the darkness of the room. I don’t
know what is holding me back. Fear, no doubt, for
I say to myself: “ She will struggle, cry, call for help
and I shall be compelled to kill her!” Once, alarmed
by the noise, she got up, barelegged; she was dumb-
founded for a moment, upon beholding me.

“What is the matter! It’s you, friend Mintié?
What are you doing here? Are you ill?”

I stammered some incoherent words and went up-
stairs to my room.

Ah! Let them drive me out, beat me, with forks,
stakes, scythes. Is it possible that men will not come
in here in a moment, rush upon me, gag and drag me
into the eternal night of the dungeon?

I must go away! I must find Juliette again! I must
vent this accursed madness upon her!

When dawn came I went downstairs and said to
Mother Le Gannec: “I must leave! Let me have some
money. I shall pay it back to you later. Let me have
some money. I must leave!”

CHAPTER XI

second floor of a furnished house in the Faubourg

Saint-Honoré near the Rue de Balzac. The fur-
niture of the room was rickety, the tapestry worn, the
drawers creaked when opened, the pungent odor of de-
caying wood and accumulated dust filled the window
curtains and bedstead hangings; but by placing knick-
knacks here and there, she succeeded in imparting an
air of intimacy to this banal, cold place, where so
many unknown lives had been spent without a trace
being left behind. Juliette reserved to herself the task
of arranging my things in the hanging-press which
she filled with bunches of fragrant flowers.

“You see, my dear, here are your socks, and there
are your night shirts. I put your neckties in the
drawer; your handkerchiefs are there. I hope your
little wifie has put everything in order. And every
day I'll bring you a sweet-smelling flower. Now
don’t be sad. Tell yourself that I love you, that I
love no one but you, that I shall come often. Oh, I
have forgotten a few things! Well, I’ll send them to
you with Celestine, together with my pictures in the
beautiful red plush frames. Don’t feel lonesome, my
poor, little thing! You know, if I am not here at half-
past twelve tonight don’t wait for me. Go to bed.
Sleep well. Promise me?”

And casting a last glance about the room, she left.

Indeed, Juliette came every day, while going to the
Bois and on her way home before dinner. She never re-
mained more than two minutes at a time. Excited,
impelled by a feverish desire to be outside, she would

J scons to had chosen a room for me on the

CALVARY 233

stay long enough to embrace me and to open the
drawers to see whether my things were in order.

“Well Iam going. Don’t be sad. I see you have
been crying. That is not nice at all! Why cause me
aggravation?’

“Juliette! Will I see you tonight? Oh! please, to-
night!”

“ Tonight?”

She reflected for a minute.

“Tonight, yes, my dear! But still do not wait for
me too long. Go to bed. Sleep well. Above all,
don’t cry. You drive me to despair! Really, I don’t
know what to do with you!”

And so I lived here, stretched out on the sofa, never
going out, counting the minutes which slowly, slowly,
drop by drop, vanished into the eternity of waiting.

The frenzied excitement of my senses was succeeded
by a period of great depression. I spent whole after-
noons apathetically, without stirring, my body lifeless,
my limbs hanging, my brains in a state of torpor, like
the morrow of a day of drunkenness. My life re-
sembled a heavy slumber disturbed by painful dreams,
interrupted by sudden awakenings even more painful
than the dreams; and in the annihilation of my will
power, in the blotting out of my intellect, I again felt,
but more keenly than ever, the horror of my moral
decay. In addition, Juliette’s life caused me perpetual
anguish. As in the past, on the dune of Ploch, I could
not dismiss from my mind the loathsome vision which
grew, intensified and assumed even more cruel forms.
. .- To lose a person whom you love, a person who
has been the source of all your joys, the memory of

whom is associated with happiness only, is a heart- |

rending sorrow. But where there is sorrow there is also
consolation, and suffering is eventually put to sleep,
lulled in some way by its own tenderness. But here I

\

234 CALVARY

was losing Juliette, losing her daily, every hour, every
minute; and with this chain of successive deaths, with
this process of impenitent dying, I could only asso-
ciate memories of torture and disgrace.

No matter how eagerly I searched in the stirred-up
depths of our two hearts for a flower bud, for a tiny
blossom whose fragrance it would have been so sweet
to inhale, I could not find it. And yet I could not
conceive anything dissociated from Juliette. All my
thoughts had Juliette for their starting point and for
their final goal, and the more she escaped me the
more fiercely obdurate I grew in my absurd desire to
win her back. I had no hope at all that she would
ever stop, carried away as she was by this life of evil
pleasure; yet, in spite of myself, in spite of her, I was
planning for a better future. I said to myself: “It
is impossible that some day disgust will not seize her,
that some day sorrow will not awaken remorse and
pity in her heart. Then she will return to me. Then
we will move into a plain workman’s house and I shall
work like a galley-slave. I'll enter journalism, I'll
publish novels, I’ll ask for a job as a plain copyist.”
Alas! I forced myself to believe all this so as to accen-
tuate the state of misery into which I had fallen. With
the proceeds from the sale of two sketches by Lirat,
of a few jewels I still had, of my books, I had realized
a sum of four thousand francs, which I was saving
like a treasure for that chimeric eventuality.

One day when Juliette was pensive and tenderer
than usual, I ventured to lay my project before her.
She clasped her hands.

“Yes! Yes! Ah! Won’t that be nice! A little bit
of an apartment, a tiny one. I’ll do the housekeeping,
I’ll have pretty bonnets, a pretty apron! But with you
it'll be impossible! What a pity! It’s impossible! ”

“Why is it impossible? ”

CALVARY 235

“ Because you won’t work and we'll starve. That’s
your nature! Did you work at Ploch. Are you work-
ing now? Why, you have never worked!”

“ How can I? Don’t you know that the thought of
you never leaves me for a moment? It is the uncer-_
tainty of your life, it is the cruel anguish of every-
thing I feel, of everything I suspect about you that
gnaws at my heart, devours me, sucks my brains!
When you are not here, I don’t know where you are!
And still I am always with you wherever you are!
Ah! if you only wished! To know that you are near
me, loving and tranquil, far from everything that be-
smirches, from everything that torments. Why, I could
then have the strength of a God in me! Money!
Money! Why, I’ll make it for you by the shovelful,
by the cartful! Ah! Juliette if you only wished... .”

She looked at me, excited by the great noise of gold
which my words caused to ring if her ears.

“Well! Make it right away, dearie. Yes, make a
lot of it, piles of it! And don’t think about those vile
things which make you suffer! Men are so funny!
They don’t want to understand anything! ”

Tenderly, she sat down on my lap.

“Why, I adore you, my dear little thing! Why, I
detest the others and I give them nothing of myself,
do you hear, nothing. I am very unhappy!”

With tear-filled eyes, she tried to nestle near me, re-
peating: “ Yes very, very unhappy!”

I was seized with fear and pity.

“ Ah! He thinks it is a pleasure!” she cried sobbing,
“he thinks so! But if I did not have my Jean to con-
sole me, my Jean to lull me to sleep, my Jean to give
me courage, I could not stand it any longer. I could
not stand it any longer. . . . I would rather die.”

Suddenly, changing the subject, and: with a voice
in which I seeemd to hear a plaint of regret:

236 CALVARY

“First of all, you need money for that,—for the
little apartment, | mean. . . and you haven’t got it!”

“ Why yes, yes, my dear,” I exclaimed triumphantly,
“T have some money. We have enough to live on
for two months, three months while I make my for-
tune!”

“You have money? Let me see it.”

I showed her four one thousand franc bills. Juliette
greedily snatched them one after another, counted
them, examined them. Her eyes shone, surprised and
delighted.

“ Four thousand francs, dear! you really have four
thousand francs! Why, you are rich! Well, well!”

She hung on my neck, caressed me.

“Well now,” she resumed, “since you are so rich,
I should like to have a little traveling dressing case
that I saw at the Rue de Paix. You will buy it for me,
won’t you, dearie?”

I felt a tug at my heart so painful that I nearly fell
to the floor, and a well of tears blinded me. Still I had
the courage to ask:

“How much does your dressing case cost?”

“Two thousand francs, my dear.”

“All right! Take two thousand francs out of that.
You'll buy it yourself.”

Juliette kissed my forehead, took the two bills which
she quickly hid in her coat pocket, and her gaze fixed
on the two bills which still remained and for which
she no doubt regretted she had not asked, she said:

“Really? Do you want me to? Ah! that’s nice!
That will give me a chance to come to see you with
my new dressing case, if you should return to Ploch.”

When she was gone, I abandoned myself to an out-
burst of anger against her, above all against myself,
and when the anger subsided I suddenly realized to
my astonishment that I no longer suffered. Yes, I

CALVARY 237

breathed more freely, I was able to stretch out my
arms with greater vigor, I felt a new buoyancy in my
limbs; at last, one might say, some one had removed
the crushing weight which for so long a time I had
borne on my shoulders. I experienced a keen joy in
moving my limbs, in exercising my muscles and joints,
in setting my nerves into vibration, when it thus came
upon me one morning, in a leap from my bed. Was I
not really awakening from a slumber as deep as death?
Was I not recovering from a sort of catalepsy, in
which my whole being, sunk in torpor, had known
the horrible nightmare of non-existence? I was like
one buried who finds the light of day again, like one
famished who is given a piece of bread, like one sen-
tenced to death who receives his pardon. . . . I went
to the window and looked out into the street. The
slanting rays of the sun were flooding the houses in
front of me with a golden mist; on the sidewalk people
were hurriedly passing, preoccupied, with a happy
gait; carriages joyously crossed each other’s path.
The hustle and bustle and noise of life intoxicated,
stirred, carried me away, and I cried out:

“T don’t love you any more! I don’t love you any
more!”

In the space of a second I had a very clear vision of
a new life of work and happiness. I was to cleanse
myself of this filth, to seize my interrupted dreams;
not only did I want to redeem my honor, but I wanted
also to achieve a glory so great, so undisputed, so uni-
versal, that Juliette would burst with spite for having
lost a man like me. I already saw myself perpetuated
in bronze and marble by posterity, placed upon
columns and symbolic pedestals, filling the centuries
to come with my immortalized image. And what gave
me particular pleasure was the thought that Juliette

238 CALVARY

would not share a particle of this glory, and that I
pitilessly pushed her off my lofty plane entirely.

I went down, and for the first time in two years
felt a delicious pleasure in being on the street. I
walked fast, with supple movements, a victorious gait,
interested in the simplest things about me which
seemed so new. And I asked myself with amazement
how in the world I could have been unhappy so long,
why my eyes had not opened to the truth much sooner
than they did. . . . Ah, that despicable Juliette! How
she must have laughed at my submission, my blind-
ness, my pitifulness, my inconceivable folly! No doubt,
she told her casual lovers of my idiotic grief. But I
was going to have my revenge and it would be ter-
rible! Juliette would soon lie prostrate at my feet
begging my pardon.

“No, no, you miserable creature, never! . . When
I cried, did you comfort me? ... Did you spare me
a single suffering, a single one? Did you ever for a
moment consent to share my misery, to live my life
with me? You don’t deserve to share my glory. No. ..
go! ”

And to show my absolute contempt for her, I would
throw millions in her face.

“Here are your millions! You said you wanted
millions? Here are some more!”

Juliette would wring her arms in despair.

“Have mercy, Jean! Have pity on me! I don’t want
your money! What I want is to live in obscurity and
humbly in your shadow, happy if a single ray of light
surrounding you will some day come to rest upon your
poor Juliette. Have pity on me!”

“ Did you have pity on me when I asked for it! No!
Women like you should be killed with blows of gold.
Here! Have some more! Here! Some more still!”

CALVARY 239

I was walking with long strides, talking aloud,
moving my hands as if throwing millions into space.

“ Here, wretch, here!”

Nevertheless, my insusceptibility to everything else
when preoccupied with the thought of Juliette was
not so complete as to preclude my getting uneasy at
the sight of any woman, and scrutinizing with an im-
patient glance the inside of the carriages which end-
lessly passed by on the street. On the boulevard my
assurance left me, and anguish again seized my whole
being. I felt an unbearable burden upon my shoulders,
and the devouring beast driven off but a moment ago,
rushed on me more ferociously than ever, sinking
its fangs into my flesh deeper than ever. It was enough
for me to see the theatres, the restaurants, those evil |
places full of the mystery of Juliette’s life, to make
me feel this. The theatres were saying to me: “She
was here that night; while you were moaning, calling
her, waiting for her—she was promenading in her
stage box, with flowers on her bosom, happy, without
the slightest thought of you.” The restaurants were
saying: “ That night your Juliette was here. . . With
eyes drunk with lust she was rolling on our broken
sofas, and men who smelled of wine and cigars pos-
sessed her.” And all the agile, handsome young men
I met on the street seemed to say to me: “ We know
your Juliette. Does she give you any of the money
she charges us?” Every house, every object, every
manifestation of life cried with a frightful chuckle:
“ Juliette! Juliette!” The sight of roses at the florist’s
was painful, and I felt rage boil within me each time
I looked at the shop windows with their display of
inviting things. It seemed to me that Paris was
spending all its power, using all its seduction, to rob
me of Juliette, and I wished to see it perish in some
catastrophe; I regretted that the rigorous days of the

240 CALVARY

Commune were over, when one could pour petroleum
and scatter death upon the streets! I returned home.

“ Did anyone call?” I asked the caretaker.

“ No, Monsieur Mintié.”

“No letters either?”

“No, Monsieur Mintié.”

“ Are you sure nobody went up to my room while I
was away?”

“ The key was not touched.”

I scribbled the following words on my card: “I
want to see you.”

“Take this over to the Rue de Balzac.”

I waited in the street, impatient, nervous; the care-
taker was not long in returning.

“The maid told me that Madame had not yet come
back.”

It was seven o’clock. I went to my room and
stretched out on the sofa.

“She won’t come. Where is she? What is she
doing?”

I did not light the candles. The window, illum-
inated by the street, shone in the room with a dark
glimmer, reflected a yellow shine upon the ceiling,
where appeared the trembling shadow of the curtains.
And the hours passed, slow and endless, so endless
and so slow that one might say the flow of time had
suddenly stopped.

“She won’t come!”

From the street, the intermittent noise of vehicles
reached me; the buses rolled heavily, the closed car-
riages passed by lightly and rapidly. When one of
them passed close to the sidewalk or slowed down I
would rush to the window, which I had left half-open,
to look into the street. . . . No one alighted.

“She won’t come!”

And while saying to myself; “She won’t come,” I

CALVARY 241

hoped that Juliette would be in shortly. Oh, how
many times I had rolled on the sofa, crying: “She
won’t come!” And Juliette always came. Always
at the moment when I most despaired, I heard a car-
riage stop, then steps on the stairway, a creaking noise
in the hallway, and Juliette would appear smiling,
adorned with plumes, filling the room with a strong
odor of perfume and the rustling of silk in motion.

“Come on, get your hat, my dear.”

Irritated by her smile, by her dress, by the perfume,
exasperated by the long waiting, I used to upbraid
her severely:

“Where have you been? In what joints have you
been? Yes, tell me, in what joints?”

“ Ah! You are trying to make a scene. Well, thanks!
I am leaving. Good night! And here I have taken
all the pains in the world to snatch a moment to look
you up!” ‘

Then pointing my finger to the door, my muscles
contracted, I would burst out:

“Well, go ahead! Go to the devil! And never come
back again, never!”

With the door scarcely shut behind Juliette, I would
run after her.

“Juliette! Come back, please! Juliette! Wait... .
I am going with you.”

She would still be descending the stairs, without
turning her head. I would catch up with her.

Near her, near this dress, these plumes, these flowers,
these jewels, fury would again seize me:

“Come right up with me or I’ll crack your head
against these steps! ”

And when in the room I would throw myself at her
feet.

“Ah, my little Juliette, I am wrong, I know I am
wrong. But I suffer so much! Have pity on me! If

242 CALVARY

you only knew in what a hell I am living! If you could
only tear my breast open and see what is going on in
my heart! Juliette! Oh, I can’t, I can’t go on living
like this any more! Even a beast would have pity on
me. Yes, a wretched beast would have pity on me!”

I would press her arms, cling to her dress.

“My Juliette! I have not killed you, though I
have a perfect right to, I swear. I have not killed
you! You should have given an account of yourself.
I must make inhuman efforts to control myself, for
you don’t know what terrible and vengeful things a
man who suffers and is lonely can conceive. I have
not killed you! I have been hoping!—TI am still hop-
ing! Come back to me. I'll forget everything, I’ll
erase everything from my memory, my sorrow and
my shame. ... Yliou will be to me the purest, the
most radiant of virgins. We’ll go away, far, far away
from here. Wherever you wish. I shall marry you!
Don’t you want me to? Do you think I am telling you
this in order to have you with me again? Swear to
me that you will change your mode of life and I'll
kill myself here in front of you! Listen, I have sacri-
ficed everything for you! I am not talking of my
fortune, but of what was formerly the pride of my
life, my manly honor, my dream of an artist, all this
I have given up for you, without the least regret. You
should make some sacrifice for me in turn. And pray,
what is it I ask of you? Nothing. . . except the glad-
ness of being honest and good. To devote, to con-
secrate oneself to something, why that’s so grand, so
noble! Oh, if you only knew the infinite pleasure of
sacrifice? Look now. . Malterre is rich. He is a
good fellow, better than the others, he loved you!
I’ll go to him, I'll say to him: ‘ You alone can save
Juliette, you alone can save Juliette, you alone can
bring her back from the life she is living. Go back

CALVARY 243

to her, and don’t be afraid of me. I am going out
of her life.’ Do you want me to do that?”

Juliette would look at me, greatly astonished. An
uneasy smile would play on her lips. She would mur-
mur:

“Come, my dear, you say silly things. Don’t cry,
come!”

While going out, I would continue to lament: “A
beast would have pity on me! Yes, a beast!”

At other times, she would send Celestine for me,
and I would find her in bed, cold, sad and tired. I could
see that some one had been there just a moment ago,
some one who had just left; I could see it in every-
thing that surrounded me—=in the bed just made, in
the toilette articles arranged with overscrupulous care,
in all the carefully removed traces which in my imag-
ination reappeared again in all their hidden and sor-
rowful reality. I would linger in the dressing room,
rummage among the drawers, examine objects, even
lower myself to a shameful scrutiny of her personal
belongings. . . . Juliette would call me:

“Come over here, my dear! What are you doing
there?”

Oh! If I could only reconstruct his image, find the
least trace of that man! I inhaled the air, inflated my
nostrils, hoping to come upon the strong male scent,
and it seemed to me that the shadow of a mighty torso
spread itself over the hangings, that I distinguished
huge, athletic arms, quivering thighs with bulging
muscles.

“Are you coming?” Juliette would repeat.

On those nights Juliette would talk of nothing but
the soul, the sky, the birds, telling me that she was in
need of an ideal, of celestial dreams. Huddled in my
arms, chaste as a child, she would say, with a sigh:

“ Oh, how nice it is to sit like this! Tell me some-

244 : CALVARY

thing beautiful, my Jean, some such thing as one reads
about in poetry. I love your voice so much; it is so
musical . . . speak to me long. You are so good, you
comfort me so well! I would like to live all my life
like this, always in your arms, without stirring, listen-
ing to you! Do you know what else I would like to
have? Ah, I am dreaming of it all the time! I would
like to have a nice little baby girl who should be like
a cherub, all pink and blond! I would nurse her my-
self and you would sing her some pretty little songs
to put her to sleep! My Jean, when I am dead you
will find in my jewelry case a little pink writing book
with gold ornaments. That’s for you. Take it. There
I have written down my thoughts, and you'll see
whether I loved you or not! You'll see! Ah! To-
morrow one must get up again, go out... how an-
noying! Rock me, speak to me, tell me that you love
my soul... my soul!.. .”

And she would fall asleep, and in her sleep look so
white, so pure, that the bed curtains would seem like
wings attached to her.

Night came on, the suburb grew quiet. From afar,
belated carriages were returning, and on the sidewalk
two policemen paced with heavy, dragging strides,
keeping in step. ... Several times the door of the
furnished house opened and closed; I heard some
creaky noise, the rustling of a woman’s dress, whis-
pering voices in the hallway. But it was not Juliette.
The silent house seemed to have been asleep a long
while. I left the sofa, lit my lamp, looked at the
clock; it was three o’clock.

“She won’t come! Now it’s all over. She won’t
come!”

I stood at the window. The street was deserted,
the dark sky hung over the houses like a leaden lid.
Over yonder in the direction of Boulevard Haussman

CALVARY 245

large vehicles were coming down hill, shaking the
night with their loud jolting. ... A rat darted from
one sidewalk to the other and disappeared into a hole
in the gutter. . . . I saw a homeless dog with hanging
head and tail between its hind legs passing, stopping
at the doors, smelling the gutter, dolefully walking
away.

I shook with fever, my brain was inflamed, my
hands were moist and again I felt a stifling sensation
in my chest.

“ She won’t come! Where is she? Did she go back
to her house? Where, in what filthy hole of this great
impure night is she wallowing?”

What made me particularly angry was that she did
not let me know ahead of time. She had received my
card. She knew she was not coming. And she did
not send me a single word! I had cried, implored,
begged her on my knees ... and not a word from
her! How many tears, how much blood must one
shed to soften that heart of flint? How could she run
after pleasure with her ears still full of the echoes of
my sobs, her mouth still moist with my entreating
kisses? The most wretched women, the most detest-
able creatures at some time or other call a temporary
halt to their life of dissipation and prey; there are
moments when they permit the sun to penetrate their
chilled hearts, when turning their eyes to heaven they
pray for love that pardons and redeems! But Juliette

. never! Something more insensible than fate,
something more relentless than death was driving her,
was eternally drawing and spurring her on without
respite, without pause, from impure to criminal love,
from that which dishonors to that which kills! The
more days passed, the more marks of infamy de-
bauchery left on her. With her passion, formerly so
normal and healthy, were now mingled a depraved in-

246 CALVARY

quisitiveness and that savage unsatiableness, that over-
stimulation of irrepressible lust which comes as result
of excessive and sterile pleasures. Except on the
nights when exhaustion invested the sordid reality of
her existence with unexpected forms of the purest
ideal, one could see upon her the imprints of a thous-
and different and refined corruptions, of a thousand
grotesque perversions practiced upon her by those
palled by vice and age. Words and cries often es-
caped her which suddenly lit up her whole life and
opened up vistas of frenzied sensuality, and although
she would thereby communicate to me the consuming
passion of her depravity, although I myself relished
in all this a sort of infernal criminal voluptuousness, I
could not look at Juliette without a shudder! . . . And
when leaving her embrace, ashamed and disgusted, I
felt the need, often experienced by reprobates, of look-
ing at tranquil, restful sights, and I envied, — oh, with
what keen regret!—the superior beings who had
made purity and virtue the inflexible laws of their
life! . . . I dreamed of convents where one spent one’s
life in prayer, of hospitals where one devoted oneself
to others. . . . I was seized with a mad desire to enter
the disreputable joints and preach the gospel to the
unfortunate people who wallow in vice there, never
hearing a single word of kindness; I promised my-
self to follow the prostitutes at night, into the shadow
of public squares, to console them, to speak to them
of virtue with such passionate earnestness, in accents
so touching that they would be moved, would burst
into tears and would say to me: “Yes, save us... .”
I liked to spend hours in the Monceau park, watching
the children play, discovering a paradise of goodness
in the glances of young mothers; I was moved to re-
construct their lives so remote from my own; to live
through, while near them, their sacred joys forever

CALVARY 247

lost to me. .. . On Sundays I used to loiter at the
railway stations where I mingled with the merry
crowds, among’ petty officials and workingmen leav-
ing town with their families to get a little fresh air
for their affected lungs, to gather a little strength to
be able to withstand the fatigue of their work during
the week. I followed the steps of some laborer whose
face interested me; I would have liked to possess his
bent back, his deformed hands turned brown through
hard work, his stiff walk, his trusting eyes of a house
dog. ... Alas! .. I would have liked to have every-
thing I did not have, to be everybody that I was not!
. These wanderings which rendered the realization
of my downfall even more painful, did me some good,
however, and I used to come home each time with
all sorts of courageous resolutions. ... But in the
evening I would see Juliette again, and Juliette was
to me the oblivion of all honor and all duty.
Above the houses the sky was brightened by a
feeble light announcing the approaching dawn, and
at the end of the street, in the shadow, I noticed two
glaring points, the two lights of a carriage, vacillating,
swerving, approaching, which resembled two errant
gas lamps. . . . Hope revived in me for a moment. . .
the carriage came nearer, dancing on the pavement,
the lights grew larger, the rattling quickened. . .
I thought I recognized the familiar trundling of
Juliette’s brougham! ... But no! ... Suddenly the
carriage turned to the left and disappeared. . . . With-
in an hour it would already be day!
“She won’t come! ... This time it is all over, she
won’t come!”
I closed the window, lay down again on the sofa,
blood surging in my temples, all bigs members aching.
. In vain I tried to sleep. . . . I could not do any-
thing but weep, cry out:

248 CALVARY

“Oh! Juliette! Juliette!”

My chest was burning, I felt the sensation of boiling
lava swirling in my head. My thoughts were in con-
fusion, turning into hallucinations. Along the walls of
my bedroom weasels were chasing one another, jump-
ing, abandoning themselves to obscene frolics. I was
hoping that I would succumb to fever, that it would
chain me to my bed, that it would cause my death.
To be sick! Ah! .. yes, to be sick, long, forever! I
had visions of Juliette installing herself in my room.
She nursed me, she lifted my head to make me take
medicine, she saw the doctor to the door, while talk-
ing to him in a low voice, and the doctor had a grave
air.

“No! No! Madame, not all is lost yet. Calm
yourself.”

“Ah! Doctor, save him, save my Jean!”

“Only you can save him, because it is on account
of you that he is dying!”

“Ah! What can I do?... Tell me, doctor,
please!”

“You must love him, you must be good to him.”

And Juliette threw herself into the arms of the
physician :

“No! It’s you I love! ... Come!”

She dragged him, clinging to his lips. . and in the
bedroom they danced and jumped to the ceiling and
fell on my bed, enlaced.

“Die, my Jean, please die! Ah! Why does it take
you so long to die?”

I fell into a slumber. When I awoke it was broad
daylight. Buses were again rolling on the street,
hawkers were screaming out their morning yells; I
heard the scratching of a broom sweeping against my
door in the hallway where people were passing.

I went out, and proceeded in the direction of the

CALVARY 249

Rue de Balzac. As a matter of fact I had no other
intention than to see Juliette’s house, to look into
its windows and perhaps come across Celestine or
Mother Souchard. .... More than twenty times I
passed back and forth on the sidewalk, in front of it.
The windows of the dining room were open, and I
could see the copper plates which were shining in the
shadow. A rug was hanging from the balcony. The
windows of the bedroom were closed. What was
there behind these closed shutters, behind this white
impenetrable wall? A disarranged, untidy bed, the
heavy odor of carnal passion, and two outstretched
bodies asleep. The body of Juliette. . . and who else?
The body of Mr. Everybody. . . . A body that Juliette
had picked up casually under a cabaret table or on
the street! They were asleep, sated with lust! The
caretaker came to shake the rug on the sidewalk. I
walked away, for ever since I had left the apartment
I avoided the mocking glance of this old woman, I
blushed every time my eyes met hers, bulging and
vicious, seeming to jeer at my misfortune. . .. When
she was finished I returned to the place and stood
there for a long time to fret against this wall behind
which something horrible was going on and which
guarded the cruel mystery of a sphinx crouched upon
the sky. Suddenly, as if struck by thunder, a mad
fury shook me from head to foot and, without realiz-
ing what I was going to do, without even thinking of
it, I entered the house, went up the stairway and rang
at Juliette’s door. It was Mother Souchard who
opened the door for me.

“Tell Madame,” I shouted, “tell Madame that I
want to see her immediately, I want to speak to her.
Also tell her that if she does not come out I’ll go and
find her myself, I’ll drag her out of her bed, do you
hear! Tell her. .. .”

250 CALVARY

Mother Souchard, pale and trembling, stammered
out:

“Why, my poor Monsieur Mintié, Madame isn’t in
there. Madame has not come back... .”

“Take care, you old sorceress! Don’t try to make
a fool out of me! And do as I tell you or I'll kill and
smash everybody and everything — Juliette, you, the
furniture, the house.”

The old servant raised her arms to the ceiling in
bewilderment.

“T swear to you by the Lord! She has not come
back yet, Monsieur Mintié! Go into her bedroom and
see for yourself! I am telling you!”

In two bounds I was in the bedroom. . . the bed-
room was empty. .. the bed had not been touched.
Mother Souchard followed every step I made, repeat-
ing:

“See, Monsieur Mintié! See! Because you are no
longer together. At this hour! .. .”

I passed into the dressing room. Everything was in
order just as it had been when we used to come home
late at night. Juliette’s things were lying on the sofa,
a boiler full of water was on the gas stove.

“And where is she?” I asked.

“Ah! Monsieur,” Mother Souchard replied, “does
anybody know where Madame goes? There was a man
here this morning who looked like some kind of a
valet and spoke to Celestine, and then Celestine went
out taking with her a change of clothes for Madame.
... That’s all I know!”

While prowling in the study I found the card which
I had sent her the day before.

“ Did Madame read this?”

“ Probably not.”

“ And you don’t know where she is?”

CALVARY 251

“ Why, I am sure I don’t know. Madame never tells
me her affairs.”

I went back to the bedroom, seated myself on a
long couch.

_ “All right, Madame Souchard. I am going to wait

here. And let me tell you that something funny is

going to happen! Ha! Ha! In the end, you see,

Mother Souchard, this thing is bound to come to a

head. I have been patient long enough. I have been.
. Well, that’s enough!”

I shook my fist in the air.

“And it is going to be very funny, Mother
Souchard!. . . and you'll be able to brag about having
taken part in something very funny, something you'll
never forget, never! You'll dream about it at night
with terror, so help me God!”

“Oh! Monsieur Mintié! Monsieur Mintié, ” the old
woman implored. “For the love of God calm your-
self. Go away! You'll commit a crime as sure as I
live! And what is it you are going to do, Monsieur
Mintié? What are you going to do?”

At this moment, Spy, having come out of his cor-
her, was advancing toward me, shaking his back, danc-
ing on his hind legs like those of a spider. And I
looked at Spy persistently. I was thinking that Spy
was the only creature that Juliette loved, that to kill
Spy would be to inflict the greatest sorrow on Juliette!
The dog raised its paws toward me and tried to get
on my lap. He seemed to say:

“Even if you do suffer so much, I am not to blame
for it. To avenge yourself on me—so small, so
feeble, so trustful, would be cowardly. And then you
think she really loves me so much! I amuse her as a
plaything, I serve as a distraction for her for a moment
and that is all. If you kill me now she will get an-
other little dog like me this very evening, one whom

252 CALVARY

she will call Spy as she did me and whom she will
overwhelm with caresses as she did me, and nothing
will be changed!”

I did not heed Spy any more than I heeded any of
the voices that spoke within me whenever evil was
drawing me on to commit some reprehensible deed.

Brutally, ferociously I seized the little dog by his
hind legs.

“ Here is what I am going to do, Mother Souchard!”
I shouted. “ Look!”

And hurling Spy into the air with all my force so
that he turned over several times, I crashed his head
against the corner of the fireplace. Blood streamed
all over the looking-glass and the hangings, bits of
brains stuck to the candlesticks and a torn-out eye
fell on the carpet.

“What am I going to do, Mother Souchard?” I re-
peated, flinging the cadaver into the middle of the
bed upon which a pool of blood appeared. “ What am
I going to do? Ha, Ha! You see this blood, this eye,
these brains, this cadaver, this bed! Ha, Ha! Well,
that’s what I am going to do to Juliette, Mother
Souchard! That’s what I am going to do to Juliette,
do you hear me, you old drunkard!”

“Ah! for the life of me!” Mother Souchard stam-
mered out, terrified. For the life of the good Lord,
Ng eee

She did not finish. With bulging eyes, her mouth
wide open and distorted into a horrible grimace, she
was staring at the black body on the bed and at the
blood absorbed by the bed clothes, the red stain on
which was becoming purple and larger.

CHAPTER XII

HEN I regained my senses, the killing of

W Spy appeared to me a monstrous crime.
I was as horrified as if I had killed a

child. Of all the cowardly acts committed I thought
that was the most cowardly and loathsome! To
kill Juliette! That would have been a crime, of
course, but perhaps there could be found, if not
an excuse, at least a reason for that crime in the
revolt of my anguish. But to kill Spy! A dog...
a poor, inoffensive creature! Why? For no other
reason than that I was a brute, that I had in me the
savage and irresistible instinct of a murderer! Dur-
ing the war I had killed a man who was kindly, young
and strong, and I had killed him just at the moment
when, fascinated, with beating heart, he was raptur-
ously watching the rising sun! I had killed him while
hidden behind a tree, concealed by the shadow, like
a coward! He was a Prussian? What difference does
it make! He, too, was a human being, a man like my-
self, better than myself. Upon his life were depend-
ing the feeble lives of women and children; a portion
of suffering humanity was praying for him, waiting
for him; perhaps in that virile youth, in that robust
body that was his, he had the germs of those superior
beings for whom humanity had been living in hope?
And with one shot from an idiotic, trembling gun I
had destroyed all that. And now I killed a dog! ...
and killed it when it was coming toward me, when
it was trying with its little paws to climb on my lap!
Verily, I was an assassin! That small cadaver haunted
me, I always saw that head hideously crushed, the

254 CALVARY

blood squirting all over the white clothes of the bed-
room, and the bed indelibly stained with blood.

What was also tormenting was the thought that
Juliette would never forgive me the loss of Spy. She
would be horrified at the mere sight of me. I wrote
her letters of repentance, assured her that from now on
I was going to be satisfied with what little attention
she might give me, that I would never again com-
plain, that I was not going to reproach her for her
behavior; my letters were so humble, so self-degrad-
ing, so vilely submissive that a person other than
Juliette would feel disgusted on reading them. I sent
them with a messenger whose return I would anxious-
ly await on the corner of the Rue de Balzac.

“ No answer!”

“ Are you sure you did not give it to the wrong
person? Did you deliver it to the party on the first
floor?”

“Yes, Monsieur. The maid even said to me: ‘No
answer!’”

I went to her house. The door was opened only
to the extent allowed by the chain lock which Juliette,
fearing me, had ordered put on, since the evening of
that terrible scene; and through the half-opened space
I could see the mocking and cynical face of Celestine.

“ Madame is not in!”

“ Celestine, my good Celestine, let me in, please!”

“ Madame is not in!”

“Celestine! My dear little Celestine. Let me go
in and wait for her. I’ll give you a lot of money.”

“ Madame is not in!”

“ Celestine, I beg of you! Go and tell Madame that
I am here, that I am all right now. . . that I am very
sick. . . that I am going to die! And you shall have
a hundred francs, Celestine. . . two hundred francs!”

Celestine looked at me slyly, with a mocking air,

CALVARY 255

happy to see me suffer, happy above all to see a man
reduced to her own level, begging servilely to her.

“For just one minute, Celestine. I'll just look at
her and go away!”

“No, no, Monsieur! She’ll scold me!”

The ringing of a bell was heard. I heard the noise
of it quicken.

“You see, Monsieur, she is calling me!”

“Well, now! Celestine, tell her that if she does not
come to my house by six o’clock, if she does not write
to me by six o’clock. . . tell her that Iam going to kill
myself! Six o’clock, Celestine! Don’t forget now. . .
tell her that I am going to kill myself!”

“ All right, Monsieur!”

The door was shut behind me with the clang of a
chained lock.

It occurred to me to see Gabrielle Bernier, to tell
her my troubles, to ask her advice, and use her offices
for a reconciliation with Juliette. Gabrielle was finish-
ing breakfast with a friend of hers, a short, skinny
woman of dark complexion, with a pointed chin like
a mouse which when speaking seemed always to be
nibbling at something. In a morning robe of white
silk, soiled and rumpled, her hair kept from falling by
a comb stuck across it on top of her head, her elbows
resting on the table, Gabrielle was smoking a cigarette
and sipping chartreuse from a glass.

“Why, Jean! And so you have come back?”

She showed me into her dressing room which was
very untidy. At the very first words which I spoke
of Juliette, she exclaimed:

“Why. . . don’t you know? We have not been on
speaking terms for two months since the time she
beat me out of a consul, my dear, an American Consul,
who paid me five thousand a month! Yes, she beat

256 CALVARY

me out of it, that skinflint did! And how about you?
You have made her come down a peg lower, I hope.”

“ Ah! I!” I answered, “Iam very unhappy! And so
a consul is her lover now!”

Gabrielle relit her extinguished cigarette and
shrugged her shoulders.

“Her lover! Do you think women like that can
keep a lover! She could not keep the Lord himself, my
dear! Ah, men don’t stick to her very long, I tell you.
They come one day and then the next they pitch camp
somewhere else. Well, thanks very much! It’s all
right to fleece them but you must do it with your
gloves on, don’t you think? And you are still in love
with her, poor boy.”

“ Still—- why I am more so than ever! I have done
everything to cure myself of this shameful infatua-
tion which makes me the lowest of men, which kills
me, but I can’t. Well now, she is leading a loathsome
life, isn’t she?”

“Ah! Well... that’s true,” Gabrielle exclaimed,
blowing a cloud of smoke in the air. “ You know that
I myself don’t play the prude. I am enjoying myself
just like everybody else. . . but honestly. ..I can
swear. .. . I’d feel ashamed to do what she does!”

With head turned, she was emitting coils of smoke
which rose tremblingly toward the ceiling. And to
emphasize what she had just said:

“That’s the truth I am telling you,” she repeated.

Although I suffered cruelly, although every word
of Gabrielle cut my heart as with a knife, I came up
to her and coaxingly:

“Come, my little Gabrielle,” I begged her, “ tell me
all about her!”

“Tell you! .. tell you! Wait now! You know
the two Borgsheim brothers. . . those two dirty Ger-
mans! Well, Juliette was with both of them at the

CALVARY 257

same time. I saw that myself, you know! At the same
time, mind you, my dear! One night she said to one
of them: ‘Ah well! It is you that I love!’ And she
led him away. The next day she said to the other:
‘No, it is positively you!’ And she led him away.
And you should have seen them! Two wretched
Prussians who haggled over the bill! And a lot of
other things. But I don’t want to tell you anything
because I see I hurt you.”

“No!” I exclaimed, “no, Gabrielle, go on, because.
... you understand. After all the disgust. . . the
disgust... .”

I was choking. I burst into sobs.

Gabrielle was trying to console me.

“Come! Come now. ... Poor Jean! Don’t cry!
She does not deserve all this grief! Such a nice boy
as you are! I can’t see how that is possible! I always
used to tell her: ‘You don’t understand him, my
dear, you never did understand him, a man like that
is a jewel!’ Ah! I know some women who would
be mighty glad to have a man like you. . . and who
would love you very much!”

She sat down on my lap and wanted to dry the tears
from my eyes. Her voice became soft and her eyes
luminous:

“ Have a little courage. Cut loose from her! Get
another one, one who is kind and gentle, one who
would understand you. Can’t you see?”

And suddenly, she threw her arms around me and
fastened her mouth upon my own. Her bare breast
which rolled out from under the lace of her peignoir
was pressing against my chest. This kiss, this ex-
posed portion of her body horrified me. I freed my-
self from her embrace, I rudely pushed Gabrielle away,
she straightened up again somewhat abashed, fixed
her dress and said to me:

258 CALVARY

“Yes, I understand! I have had the same feeling.
But, you know, dear. Whenever you want to...
come to see me.”

I left. My legs were shaking, around my head I
felt rings of lead; a cold sweat covered my face and
rolled in titillating drops down my back. In order
to walk I had to hold on to the house walls, as I was
on the verge of fainting. I walked into a café and
avidly gulped down a few draughts of rum. I could
not say that I suffered much. It was a sort of stupor
that rendered my members inactive, a kind of physical
and mental prostration in which from time to time
the thought of Juliette brought with it the sensation of
a sharp, lancinating odor. And in my disordered
mind Juliette was losing her identity; it was no
longer a woman who had an individual existence
that I saw, it was prostitution itself with its im-
mense, outstretched body covering the entire world;
it was lust personified, eternally defiled, toward which
panting multitudes were rushing across the shadow
of woeful nights, pierced by torches carried by mon-
strous idols. ...I1 remained there a long time, my
elbows on the table, my head buried in my hands,
with gaze fixed between two mirrors upon a panel on
which flowers were painted.

At last I left the café and walked. and walked
ahead, without knowing where I was going. After
a long course and without the least intention of
getting there, I found myself in the Avenue
Bois-de-Boulogne, near the Arc de Triomphe. The
sun was beginning to set. Above the hills of Saint
Cloud which took on a violet tinge, the sky was
a glorious purple, and little pink clouds were wander-
ing upon the pallid blue expanse. The woods stood
out as a solid mass, grown darker, a fine dust reddened
by the reflection of a setting sun rose from the avenue

CALVARY 259

black with carriages. And the dense mass of carriages,
congested into interminable lines, were passing with-
out end, carrying human birds of prey to nocturnal
earnages. Reclining on their cushions, indolent and
disdainful, with stupid countenances and flabby flesh,
exhaling a putrid odor, they were all there, so nearly
alike that I recognized Juliette in each one of them.
The line of vehicles appeared to me more lugubrious
than ever. As I looked at these horses, this diversity
of colors, this crimson sun which made the glass panes
of the carriages shine like breastplates, all this in-
tense intermingling of colors—red, yellow, blue —
all these plumes that swayed in the wind, I had the
impression of looking at some enemy regiments, regi-
ments of an army of conquest ready to fall upon van-
quished foes, drunk foes, drunk with a desire for
pillage. And quite seriously I was indignant over
the fact that I did not hear the roar of cannons, did
not hear the- mitrailleuses spitting death and sweep-
ing the avenue with fire. A laborer who was returning
from work stopped at the end of the sidewalk. With
tools on his shoulder and crooked back, he was watch-
ing the street. Not only did he have no hatred in his
eyes but there was a sort of ecstasy in them. Anger
seized me. I wanted to come up to him, grab him by
the collar and cry out:

“What are you doing here, you fool? Why do you
look at these women so? These women who are an
insult to your torn coat, to your arms trembling with
fatigue, to your whole wretched body emaciated by
daily hardships! In the days of revolution you
thought you could avenge yourself upon society which
kept you down by killing soldiers and priests, humble
and suffering human beings like yourself? And you
never thought of erecting scaffolds for these infamous
creatures, for these ferocious beasts who steal from you

260 CALVARY

your bread, your sun. Look! Society which is so cruel
to you, which tries to make ever heavier the
chains that hold you riveted to eternal misery, that
society offers them protection and riches; the drops of
your blood it transforms into gold with which to
cover the flabby bosoms of these despicable creatures.
It is in order that they may live in palaces that you
are spending your strength, that you are dying from
hunger or that they break your head on the barricades.
Look! When you beg for bread on the streets the
police beat you with clubs, you poor wretch! But see
how they make way for their coachmen and horses!
Look! What a juicy grape-gathering they have! Ah!
these vintage tubs of blood! And how on earth can
the pure wheat grow tall and nourishing in the soil
where these creatures rot!”

Suddenly I saw Juliette. I saw her for a second, in
profile. She wore a pink hat, looked fresh, was smil-
ing; she seemed happy. Answering greetings with a
slow motion of her head, Juliette did not see me. ...
She passed on.

She is going to my house! She has come back to
her senses. She is going to my house!

I was sure of it. An empty carriage passed by. I
went in. Juliette had disappeared.

“Tf I could only get there at the same time she
does. For I know she is going to my house! Hurry
up, driver, hurry up!”

There is no carriage in front of the door of the fur-
nished house. Juliette is already gone. I rushed down
to the caretaker.

“Was there someone here a minute ago asking about
me? Was it a lady? Mme. Juliette Roux?”

“Why no, Monsieur Mintié.”

“Well, is there a letter for me?”

“Nothing, Monsieur Mintié. ”

CALVARY 261

I was thinking:

“ She’ll be here in a minute!”

I waited. No one came! I continued waiting. No-
body came! Time passed. And still no one came!

“The contemptible creature! And she was still
smiling! And she looked gay! And she knew that I
was going to kill myself at six o’clock!”

I ran to the Rue de Balzac. Celestine assured me
that Madame had just gone out.

“ Listen, Celestine, you are a nice girl. I like you
very much. Do you know where she is? Go and find
her and tell her that I want to see her.”

“ But I don’t know where Madame is.”

“Yes, you do, Celestine. I implore you. Please
go! I suffer so!” .

“Upon my word of honor! Monsieur, I don’t know
where she is.”

I insisted:

“Perhaps she is at her lover’s? At the restaurant.
Oh, tell me where she is! .. .”

“ But I don’t know!”

I was getting impatient.

“Celestine, I have been trying to be nice to you.
Don’t make me lose my temper. . . because. . . .”

Celestine crossed her arms, shook her head and in
the drawling voice of a blackguard:

“ Because what? Oh, I am getting tired of you, you
miserable wretch, you! And if you don’t betake your-
self from here in a hurry, I am going to call the police,
do you hear?”

And pushing me rudely toward the door she added:

“Yes, I mean it! These sluts here are worse than
dogs!”

I had sense enough not to start a quarrel with
Celestine and, burning with shame, I went down the
stairway.

262 CALVARY

It was midnight when I returned to the Rue de
Balzac. I had gone through several restaurants, my
eyes seeking Juliette in the mirrors, through curtain
openings. I had gone into a few theatres. At the
Hippodrome where she used to go on subscription
days I had made a search of the stalls. This large
place, with its dazzling lights, above all, this orchestra
which played a slow and languid air —all this had un-
strung my nerves and made me cry! I had approached
groups of men, thinking that they might be talking
about Juliette and that I might perhaps learn some-
thing. And every time I saw a man dressed in evening
clothes, I had said to myself:

“ Perhaps that’s her lover!”

What was I doing here? It seemed it was my fate
to run after her everywhere, always, to live on the
sidewalk, at the door of evil places and wait for
Juliette! Exhausted with fatigue, a buzzing sensation
in my head, unable to find a trace of Juliette, I had
found myself on the street again. And I was waiting!
For what? Really, I did not know. I was waiting
for everything and nothing at the same time. I was
there either to bring myself as a voluntary offering
once more or to commit some crime. I was hoping
that Juliette would come home alone. Then I thought
I would go up to her and move her to pity with my
words. I was also afraid I might see her in the com-
pany of a man. Then I would perhaps kill her. But
I was not premeditating anything. I had simply come
here, that’s all! To surpise her all the better, I hid
myself in the shadow of the door of the house next to
her own.

From there I could observe everything without
being seen, if it were necessary not to show myself.
I did not have to wait very long. A hackney coach
coming from Faubourg Saint Honoré, passed into the

CALVARY 263

Rue de Balzac, crossed the street diagonally to the
side where I was standing and, grazing the sidewalk,
stopped in front of Juliette’s house! I held my breath,
My whole body trembled, shaken by convulsions.
Juliette came out first. I recognized her at once. She
ran across the sidewalk and I heard her pull the handle
of the door bell. Then a man came out; it seemed to
me that I knew the man also. He came to the lamp
post, searched in his pocketbook and awkwardly took
out a few silver pieces which he examined by the light
with upraised arm. And his shadow upon the ground
assumed an angular and monstrous form! I wanted
to rush out of my place of hiding. Something heavy
held me nailed to the ground. I wanted to shout. The
cry was throttled in my throat. At the same time a
chill rose from my heart to my brains. I had a feeling
as though life were slowly leaving my body. I made
a superhuman effort and with tottering steps I went
toward the man. The door was opened and Juliette
disappeared through it, saying:

“Well, are you coming?”

The man was still searching in his pocketbook.

It was Lirat! Had the houses, the very sky crashed
upon my head my astonishment would have been no
greater! Lirat going home with Juliette. That could
not be! I had lost my senses! I came still closer.

“ Lirat!” I cried out, “ Lirat! .. .”

He had paid the coachman and looked at me, terri-
fied! Motionless, with gaping mouth, with outspread
legs he was looking at me, without saying a word!

“Lirat! Is that you? It is not possible! It is not
you, is it? You look like Lirat but you are not Lirat!”

Lirat was silent... .

“Come, Lirat! You are not going to do that. . . or
I shall say that you have sent me away to Ploch in
order to steal Juliette from me! You here, with her!

264 CALVARY

Why that’s preposterous! Lirat! Remember what you
told me about her. . . think of the beautiful things
which you had planted in my soul. This despicable
woman! Why she is good only for one like me who
am lost. But you! You are an honorable man, you are
a great artist! Is it to revenge yourself on me that
you are doing this? A man like you does not revenge
himself in such a manner! He does not besmirch him-
self! If I did not come to see you it was because I
feared to incur your anger! Come, speak to me, Lirat.
Answer me!”

Lirat was silent. Juliette was calling him in the
hallway:

“Well, are you coming?”

I seized Lirat’s hands:

“Look here Lirat. . . she is mocking you. Don’t
you understand it? One day she said to me: ‘I shall
revenge myself on Lirat for his contempt, for his
arrogant harshness! And that will be a farce!’ She
is having that revenge now. You are going into her
house, aren’t you. . . and tomorrow, tonight, this very
minute, perhaps, she will chase you out in disgrace!
Yes, that is what she is after, I can swear! Ah! Now
I understand it all! She has pursued you! Foolish
as she is, infinitely inferior to you as she is, she has
known how to turn your head. She has a genius
for evil, and you are chaste in body and mind! She
has poured poison into your veins. But you are strong!
You can’t do this after all that has taken place be-
tween us. . . . or else you are a depraved man, a dirty
pig, you whom I admire! You are a dirty pig! Come
now!”

Lirat suddenly wriggled out of my hold, and, push-
ing me away with his two clenched fists:

“Well, yes!” he shouted, “I am a dirty pig! Leave
me alone!”

CALVARY 265

A dull noise was heard which resounded in the air
like a thunderbolt. It was the door shut after Lirat.
The houses, the sky, the lights of the street were in
a whirl. And I no longer saw anything. I stretched
out my arms in front of me and fell on the sidewalk.
Then in the midst of peaceful cornfields I saw a road,
a white road upon which a man, seemingly tired, was
walking. The man never stopped looking at the beau-
tiful corn which ripened in the sun, and at the broad
meadows where flocks of gamboling sheep grazed,
their snouts buried in the grass. Apple-trees stretched
out to him their branches weighted down with the
purple fruit, and the springs purled at the bottom of
their moss-covered recesses in the ground. He seated
himself upon the bank of a river covered at this spot
with little fragrant flowers, and listened rapturously
to the music of nature. . . . From everywhere voices
which rose up from the earth, voices which came down
from heaven, soft voices were murmuring: “ Come
to me all ye who suffer, all ye who have sinned. We
are the comforters who will restore to wretched peo-
ple their repose of life and their peace of conscience.
Come to us all ye who wish to live!” And the man
with arms uplifted to heaven prayed: “Yes, I wish to
live! What must I do in order not to suffer? What
must I do in order not to sin?” The trees shook their
crowns, the corn field moved its sea of stubble, a buzz-
ing arose from every grass blade, the flowers swayed
their little corollas on top of their stems, and from
all this a unique voice was heard: “ Love us!” said the
voice. The man resumed his walk, birds were flutter-
ing all around him.

The next day I bought a suit of working clothes.

“ And so Monsieur is going away! ” asked the errand
boy of the premises to whom I had just given my old
clothes.

266 CALVARY EARN 2 See lane gt

“Yes, my friend!”

“And where is Monsieur going?”

“T don’t know.”

On the street, men appeared to me like mad ghosts,
old skeletons out of joint, whose bones, badly strung
together, were falling to the pavement with a strange
noise. I saw the necks turning on top of broken spinal
columns, hanging upon disjointed clavicles, arms sun-
dered from the trunks, the trunks themselves losing
their shape. And all these scraps of human bodies,
stripped of their flesh by death, were rushing upon
one another, forever spurred on by a homicidal fever,
forever driven by pleasure, and they were fighting over
foul carrion.

io

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